Lisa Faye’s soothing silks

For over 30 years, Sarjeant- Gonzales has been a textile designer but only started her own clothing line, Lisa Faye, four years ago. She specialises in hand painting silk to make scarves, dresses, beach cover-ups and other pieces, which she believes has the ability to soothe and heal.

She recalls when a panicked mother entered her store asking for two silk scarves and that when she handed her fussing children the scarves, the fabric soothed them immediately.

She also says she has a lot of customers who were undergoing chemotherapy and with their entire bodies hurting them, they look to her silk pieces as a way of feeling comfortable and beautiful.

“It’s a lot more than just having a business, it’s about adding to other people’s lives in a positive way. So that is why I say this is where it’s at.

It’s a nice place, people are happy and I am happy. I don’t need to have a hundred thousand customers to say what I do is correct.” Using dye to paint designs onto the silk, Sarjeant-Gonzales adds embroidery to some pieces, which she imports from India, to embellish her work. She said each piece takes a week to complete.

She also sells a lot of imported jewellery and shoes that she believes will compliment her designs Prior to starting her own line and opening her store, Sarjeant-Gonzales designed fabrics for other designers and anyone who wanted to buy her fabric.

And as if that was not enough, she also had to balance her work and her family while being a radio talk show host.

After more than 25 years in the media, Sarjeant-Gonzales recently decided to devote her life to her true passion and her “first love,” designing.

She said a lot of her creativity came from her family, with her father being an artist and an architect, and her parents encouraging her: “Be who you need to be, you don’t have to go to the typical… be happy and do whatever you do.” Sarjeant-Gonzales thinks that is how passion grows and “that’s where the success is, once you do what you love.” She also had her husband’s push, telling her it was time to branch off and do her own thing, while her daughter Amaya Alleyne was a great inspiration to her work.

Sarjeant-Gonzales said: “You see creativity a lot more through children because they don’t see the world in the corrupt eyes that they’re in.” She said that as her daughter was growing up, it was a lovely way of spending creative time with her. Her daughter models her mother’s designs, pictures of which can be seen on Lisa Faye’s Facebook posts as well as on the walls of the store.

Sarjeant-Gonzales said when her daughter began modelling and she saw what it did for her daughter’s self esteem she got two of her friends to model also.

“One of them was looking at the pictures afterwards and said ‘Aunty I didn’t realise I was so pretty,’ and she’s gorgeous and I wish I could do that all the time.”