LYNDA OSBORNE

Her plan is to one day have her own factory and go global, via the Internet, with her arty designs.

“It is a good thing where smaller people now have an avenue. You just have to market your stuff properly and target your online market,” she says.

One of the “greatest feelings”, she notes, is having her clothes being sold in stores or seeing someone wearing her designs.

Osborne never dreamed of becoming a professional designer. In fact, when she was in primary school she wanted to be a nun, then an flight attendant, and then a professional singer. However, there were early signs of her artistic tendencies, as she recalls enjoying drawing people in school. Designing was in her blood. Her mother used to sew and teach sewing at home. She says she took formal classes to get the basic format, but was mostly self-taught. At age 16 she had “ripped out a shirt” and copied it.

But the first time she really designed an outfit was for herself when she was a contestant in the local talent show Scouting for Talent.

She began working at the Ministry of Works at age 18, and began sewing her own clothes for work. Her stylish look attracted the attention of some of her co-workers, and soon she was sewing for them too. She is also naturally good with figures, a skill that has been useful in her business.

“Somehow measurements and making something, they just come naturally. I could just use my common sense and I would take anything and make something. I covered my car seats for myself, I did my own upholstery. I didn’t go anywhere to learn to do that. I just have a knack for measurements and drafting of patterns and making patterns for things,” she says.

Osborne eventually resigned from her job and opened her own boutique – a move she has never regretted. “Everybody else was probably thinking about it. It wasn’t a big thing for me. But looking back at it now, leaving a secure job, a paying job, where you have no responsibilities, looking back at it I can understand why all these people were making a fuss,” she said with a laugh.

When she launched her first boutique in 1980 in hometown in Sangre Grande, she recalls that she took it so seriously, that she put up a “huge sign”, which in retrospect, she believes should have been smaller.

She subsequently moved her boutique from Sangre Grande to St Augustine. But tragedy struck two weeks after the move. Every item of clothing, each personally designed by her and costing thousands of dollars, was stolen.

Following that incident Osborne did a bit of wholesaling and went on to design for department stores Stephen’s and Johnson’s and Habib’s, as well as for other small boutiques. She says she thoroughly enjoyed the experience of designing a line of clothing and “pushing it out.”

However, when the ban on imported goods was lifted in the 1980s, things again took a downward turn for her..

“People were buying less local and buying foreign goods. The customers were gravitating towards foreign labels and then the suitcase trade was booming. Everybody was coming in with suitcases of foreign stuff and people running to that,” she recalls.

Osborne decided that if she could not sell wholesale she would open another boutique. For four years she struggled with the competition before she dabbled in making customised office uniforms. However, her lack of creative licence put her at a disadvantage.

In 2008 she decided to pursue her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT). Although it was difficult studying full time and working to pay the bills, she successfully completed the programme, and subsequently revived her business, now under the name Lynda Osborne. She opened a boutique in North Trinidad, and designs and sells “everything” for women, including swimsuits, casual and evening wear. She also incorporates a lot of hand painting in her designs, which she says people sometimes mistake for screen printing.

She says she has a penchant for black and white, which she describes as “very bold and striking and always makes a statement”.