Fashion Grad To Bring Bahamian Designs To New York Fashion Week

Gillian Curry-Williams is counting down the weeks till her New York Fashion Week debut this fall.

The 54-year-old Bahamian fashion designer graduated in 2012 as valedictorian of her design class at Toronto Film School’s predecessor, RCC Institute of Technology, then went on to found Remilda Rose Designs in her hometown of Nassau later that same year.

Named after Curry-Williams’ grandmother and mother, the design house’s philosophical mission is to create “romantic and feminine designs” that are characterized by “opulent fabrics, a luxurious colour palette, splashes of beautiful crystals and broaches and beautiful hand beading” for women of all sizes.

And it’s that same Remilda Rose aesthetic she plans to stick to when it comes to designing a collection for her upcoming Manhattan moment, Curry-Williams said.

“I feel pressure, because now you have to, like, up the ante…but I don’t want to do anything that’s not Remilda Rose,” she said in a recent interview with The Bahamas Tonight of her much-anticipated participation in one of the world’s biggest fashion events.

“But yeah, I’m nervous. I have designs going all around in my head ­– ‘Should I do this? Should I do that?’ I think it’s just time for me to put stuff to paper.”

With less than four months to prepare for the Sept. 6-14 fashion week, the self-professed “lace girl” knows at least half of the 20 models she’ll be provided with at NYFW will be dressed in her favourite material, while the other 10, she said, will likely be cloaked in her signature Fabric of Hope.