Threads, Strings & Multiple Personalities

Oct 15
5 min read

(One dress. Four personalities. Plenty drama.)

By now, you’ve probably realized that SIIM isn’t one tidy likkle ting you can put on a shelf. I don’t do ordinary. I do everything at once. A chaotic kitchen with Thai curry bubbling next to some Gungo Rice and Peas; a cookbook full of stories or a storybook full of recipes; playlists that bounce between Kingston, Amsterdam, and Detroit; and idle-but-not-so-idle talk of online games that take you on a run through streets of somewhere you’ve never been, but somehow know.

People always ask me, “What exactly is SIIM? Seems like you doin’ a lot of very different things?” Here’s the short answer: It’s a lifestyle – my lifestyle. And a family of products (brands) that are rooted in Jamaican culture, built from the threads of my life’s work.

Here’s the long answer: pull up a chair, because this one starts in Kingston and takes a few detours.

You ever meet a person and think, “Bwoy, this person is a switch-skin?” Well, I think all of us are a little complex – walking around with a few different people in our heads. And that’s how I design clothes: multiple personas built in. And not the kind you need a therapist for. No man… the kind that make life more interesting.

From girlhood, I was fascinated with what fabric could do. Tie it here, wrap it there, drape it one way and it’s a skirt; drape it another and it’s a dress; pull it over one shoulder and suddenly you’re giving Greek goddess. One piece. Endless versions.

And then there’s my inside-out obsession. I always wanted to make clothes so well-constructed that you could wear them the “wrong” way and no one could tell. In fact, I’ve run out the house in one of my pieces, sat down in the bank only to discover I had on my frock inside-out. The seams were too neat, the finish too clean — even for me, lol. The front could be the back, the back could be the front… and if you wanted to make it both in one day, mi seh, go right ahead.

So fashion was the SIIM brand’s first chapter because it was easiest – the part of a lifestyle you can wear, and that didn’t require a team to execute. But every ensemble, every pattern, every piece has something else underneath it. At first, a structural logic from my architectural background. Then later, a sense of arrival at some imagined event – and now, a cinematic framing inspired by my film work. A lot goes into these designs.

Strings Over Buttons

I couldn’t make a buttonhole to save my life in the early years, but I could make a mean string. So I leaned into it. Wrap skirts with extra-long ties. Dresses that fit with a single drawstring. The tie became part of the look and part of the freedom – clothes that adapt to you, instead of the other way around. It also says something about island life. A wrap skirt can go from market to moonlight in minutes. A wrap top can be loosened for a sea breeze or tightened for a hot night on the town. Casual, but calculated.

And yes (let’s just admit it), some of my pieces are what people might call “sex-ready.” Pull one string and whoopsie… there it goes. Mind you, I didn’t set out to make clothing for rude business, but let’s be honest: we Jamaicans do have a certain reputation for living life without apology… ahem.

Personality Disorder by Design

That’s the fun of SIIM pieces though – they have moods. They can be demure and buttoned up (figuratively, since I still prefer strings), or they can turn up the heat. They’re simple on the surface, but with details that let you transform them in ways even I sometimes don’t see coming. That’s the whole vibe: versatile enough for a closet in Kingston or a suitcase in Kingston-upon-Thames. Convertible, so you feel like you own four outfits instead of one. Simple yet somehow complex – like your heediat best friend (who you love to the ground) and those memorable conversations about nuttin’. Laid-back but effortlessly put-together, whether you’re barefoot or in heels.

From Verandah Experiments to Brand DNA

When I think back, that verandah Barbie fashion show wasn’t just a play-play ting… it was a prototype for the future. I was already toying with scale, proportion, and transformation. That curiosity became a habit, the habit became a signature, and that signature became SIIM’s DNA.

So these design quirks aren’t trends for me. They’ve been there from my first collection to what I’m creating now. Even as SIIM grows into a lifestyle brand, this “multiple personalities” approach stays. It’s what makes me me, and well… SIIM.

Life = Tapestry = Art

In 1998, I packed a bag and went to Asia for almost a year. My atlas at the time had Jamaica as the bellybutton of the Caribbean on the hip of the Atlantic. The Asian maps, though, had Asia in the middle — and Jamaica was a likkle, eeny-meeny speck about to drop off the edge of the paper. Blow-wow! Mind. Blown. What a simple likkle ting mek such a profound difference – when you realize you’re really not the centre of anybody else’s world! To Raas!

That trip changed the way I saw my country, my place in the world, and myself. I recorded it all in my journal – the details, the disorientation, the moments of epiphany and sudden recognition. Those pages became Gallivant: A Travelogue, now part of the SIIM product line. But even that isn’t really just a travel book. Full of recipes, poems, photos, and musings, Gallivant is the blueprint for how the SIIM brand tells stories: deeply personal, culturally specific, but with an open invitation for others to step in and see the world from a different perspective (maybe through my Jamaican eyes).

If you’ve met me, you know I can’t keep food out of a conversation for too long. So, SIIMSIMMA (our upcoming scotch bonnet pepper spread) is as much a brand statement as any SIIM garment. It is island heat, complexity, and a little unpredictability – all wrapped up in something deceptively simple. It’s also my answer to the question:

“What does Jamaica taste like when it’s bottled for the world?”

So food became part of the SIIM brand expression because it’s culture you can taste. Like our language, our cooking style is improvised, ethnically layered, and endlessly adaptable.

I like to think of technology as another kind of architecture – building invisible structures that people move through, or that move them. That thinking is behind SIIM’s future expansions into online games and tech experiences: immersive, playful, and infused with Jamaican perspective. My way of saying that dis likkle island can be as digital and forward-thinking as anywhere else. Cho!

Every one of these threads is tied to the skills I’ve honed working for other brands. I’ve designed national celebrations, crafted immersive environments for household names, and helped build fictional worlds for feature films. My work has taught me how to translate ideas into lived experiences – how to make people feel part of something bigger. SIIM is simply the point where all those skills, stories, and ambitions braid together into something that belongs to me, and by extension, to you.

The beauty of a lifestyle brand is that it doesn’t have to pick one lane. It can walk, run, dance, and skip… sometimes all at once.

And if that sounds a little chaotic, well… welcome to Jamaica. Welcome to SIIM.