Richard Young is a perfectionist and advocate for Caribbean aesthetics
June 14, 2024
Richard Young is a man for all seasons.
At the recent Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Sustainable Tourism Conference in Grenada, the distinguished creative strategist moderated a session exploring diversity, equity, inclusion and education’s pivotal role in the tourism sector to empower individuals and drive sustainable development.
While interviewing the Trinidadian at the Radisson Grenada Beach Resort, a delegate approached Young saying, ‘I am so sorry to interrupt, but great job this morning’.
He graciously acknowledged her.
The panel Young moderated included Dr. Acolla Lewis Cameron who is the University of the West Indies St. Augustine Campus Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Gender Specialist Tonni Brodber.
“I can’t go up there and talk artificiality and superficiality,” he pointed out. “I have to give it value. Before the session started, I guess they wanted to know how someone like me was moderating. But as I was talking, I could see the change in their faces and the faces of the audience members. I know people might have presuppositions about what they think my ability is. I am not your little frivolous guy in fashion. I can moderate well because I use my Caribbean way of connecting people to craft the way the story is told.”
Never satisfied after his last project, Young is always striving for excellence.
“I want it to be better with it being organic because I think that is what Caribbean people can do, coming out of the brutalities of our history,” he said. “We find ways that are commensurate with who we are at the time and we feel asserted in the newness of who we are constantly becoming. We don’t live like the Afro-Americans who are thinking about the systemic racism that is on their case all the time. I don’t knock it, but I know that we are fortunate. We can evolve in a new way because our dynamics and demographics are different. Even though systemic racism still exists in the region, I can overcome it. I walk into spaces because of my gift of gab, because I have used my education to advance me and because I know when I enter a space, I could change your mindset about me.”
An advocate for Caribbean aesthetics, Young said there is a link between sustainable tourism and fashion.
“Our fashion is part of our brand identity,” pointed out the Trinidad Tourism Ltd. Fashion Consultant. “You costume yourself based on your historical reference and your multicultural influence. We wear things that represent us that will creolize and morph into space over the years. A lot of the work is surface treatment on fabrics, including batik, tie-die and collage and applique art. Designers can express themselves and produce clothing that comes from a Caribbean space and has identity value. That is hinged on creating a festival so people can come.
“I use other creative arts like spoken word and live music to make the branding more fortified. It is a theatrical show that is designed for fashion merchandising but provides entertainment as another option. It is a show based on our fashion, but styled in an entertainment piece, promoting the vending of the designers’ clothing and apparel. My shows are representative of who we are in the way models walk. We don’t copy the metropolitan value of a model walking with a stern face and narrow hips. The girls have wider hips and they walk with a sensuality. The guys walk with a swagger. It is a cultural confidence as well that I promote in the show. That is why it is connected to tourism because you can find a way to add it to the calendar of activities for tourists looking for a different experience.”
Over the years, Young has been contracted as a Consultant to shape fashion shows in several countries, including St. Lucia, Guyana, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cayenne, Suriname, Canada and the United States.
He is also the Creative Director and Pageant Coach for the Trinidad & Tobago Miss World franchise.
Last March, Trinidadian Ache Abrahams was fourth in Mumbai.
Young, the Creative Director & Chief Moderator of ‘Oxygen with Nicole’ which is a safe space for people to connect, create and cohere, gave a reason for why Abrahams did so well at the global pageant.
“When Ache spoke, she did so for small island developing states, for tropical island spaces, Caribbean space and Trinidad & Tobago,” he said. “We are a vanguard people that have something to offer the world because we come from this plural space that worked out their formula.”
In the early 1990s, the Caribbean Communication Network commissioned Young to produce and direct the inaugural Caribbean Fashion Week, ‘Colour Me Caribbean’, that caught the attention of the British Broadcasting Corporation that covered the event for their Sunday night prime time program, ‘The Clothes Show’.
In 2008 while seeking a Creative Producer for ‘Cuttin’ Style’ that the Trinidad & Tobago Consulate in Toronto organized to promote the twin-island brand to the business community in the city, co-ordinator Joan Pierre was introduced to Young.
“Richard was a superb find because he brought many talents to the job,” she said. “He was extremely creative and an expert in identifying model talent, directing models on the runway, runway choreography, selecting the right model for the outfit and picking the runway music. Working with him was doing so with a total professional.”
Richard Young was the Creative Producer for the ‘Cuttin’ Style’ show co-ordinated by Joan Pierre stooping at left (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
With all his accomplishments and extensive global networks in the fashion and creative arts industry, Young – who was the Creative Director for Montreal Caribbean Fashion Week -- was never tempted to leave the Caribbean.
“I am a big fish in my space and I prefer to be that rather than a guppy in another space,” he said. “I am not egoistic. When I stayed in the late 80s when most of my friends were going abroad, they ended up being guppies in a big ocean. They figured I was staying in the mire of the nothingness of what they thought ‘Caribbeanness’ was. I stayed and made something of it and turned it around. Now, the world is fascinated with the allure of Caribbean identity branding and I am a part of that movement. We have good mimic men, but I go there and say this is who I am and this is who I represent and I am talking about it that you know not of. There is creative genius in that and I am representing that brand to the world.”
Asked who inspired his passion for the creative arts, Young gave the question some thought.
“I sometimes wonder about that,” he said. “My brother (Robert Young is a designer who founded The Cloth, a Caribbean fashion brand grounded in folk) said I always wanted to rearrange furniture in our home. He says it began there. I used to think about how we would watch television and change its direction of it. For me, there was a lot to diversify the ways of doing it.”
In his younger days, Williams looked up to his maternal aunt, Jean Coggins-Simmons, who co-founded the National Dance Association of Trinidad & Tobago and represented the twin islands in several countries, including Canada, Haiti, Barbados, Nigeria and Cuba.
Recognized in 1985 with a Hummingbird Silver Medal for preserving and developing folk dance, she passed away in 2005.
“I was attracted to the fact that she was so empowered because she went to many countries to learn folk,” said Young who was the Art Director for the first movie filmed in Antigua, ‘The Sweetest Mango’. “Folk keeps you grounded not just in the movement which is very gravitational and connected to the drum. The folk way is not with pretension. It is very grounded and centred and that is why that organicism that I like to go after, that natural flow that you have to craft if it is not there. It must look fluid and easy and morph nicely. I danced in her company for a while. Sometimes she did not have the education to articulate what I can now articulate. I have taken that responsibility. I can do that and change perceptions on thinkings that people would not have had respect for.”
Young comes from good stock.
His father, Joe Young, was a Transport & Industrial Workers’ Union founding member and retired Industrial Court Judge. Self-taught and widely read, he passed away in 2012.
Grace Coggins founded a credit union and was a trade union Secretary.
Young’s busy schedule has become even more hectic.
He is writing a book focusing on the Caribbean aesthetic and its beauty.
“The Caribbean aesthetic is not just about fashion,” Young, the Creative Consultant, Casting Director & Judge for the Caribbean’s Next Top Model, said. “It is about the way we do the things we do in this part of the world without restriction or imposter syndrome. We don’t have to look at someone else analysis or study in Middle America or Australia to craft our festivals.”
