There are many adjectives that can be used to describe Donna Ramsammy-James, but accomplished just about covers it, when one considers the wealth of experience and variety she has brought to the designing industry in Guyana.
Whether you agree or not, describing her as iconic in Guyana’s designing industry will not be too far off and when that term is used it will not be because of her age, but for the artistry of her work. It is a fact that when someone wears a Donna Ramsammy-James design, it stands out and is never mistaken for someone else’s.
As The Scene has learnt, it is not just designing that has made Donna accomplished, but also what she stands for and the lengths to which she would go to do achieve this. Incidentally, designing was not what she intended to do when she returned to Guyana eight years ago; her dream was to open a Thai restaurant and start a dance exercise class. Dancing is one of her “loves.”
In a wide ranging interview at her D’Urban Backlands home/studio, Donna told The Scene what she thought of the designing industry in Guyana and how fearful she is for it, as it lacks direction. Like many, she is somewhat cynical about those who pop-up everyday and call themselves designers. And while she calls for a designer’s association to help guide the young and keep them in check she feels the media bear some responsibility in holding designers accountable.
She said it is one thing for someone to jump up and say s/he is a designer or that s/he has accomplished so much and for it to be splashed across the media but she feels it is the duty of the media to hold that person accountable for their words. There is nothing wrong, she says, with the media scrutinising some of the claims made by these ‘designers’ and critiquing their work. This is what has made designers all over the world get their act together.
One cannot just wake up one day and proclaim oneself a designer. While a person may have the talent, it needs to be honed and s/he must work along with someone who is established in the industry.
Donna sat surrounded by her designs, paints, brushes and other paraphernalia; stylishly dressed, made up and with a hairstyle many of us would die for, when The Scene visited her. One could be forgiven for concluding that she was about to set off to some special function; in fact she had been working the whole day.
Her exotic pieces hung neatly on hangers, revealing that she has come a far way from the little girl who cut her clothes up to ensure that she never wore the same outfit as her older sister.
And while she spent some time telling us about the direction she wanted the designing industry to take, she also spoke of how she is a mother not just to her only child but to many young people around the world.
‘Young at heart’
When asked who Donna Ramsammy-James really is, she described the question as a “million-dollar” one but quickly said she is a wife and mother before anything else. She also works closely with her church youth group, youths from her alma mater Bishops High School, her models and her daughter’s friends from around the world.
“Even though I have only made one child I have mothered quite a few of them. I have a particular tendency towards girls because mine is a daughter and I love girl children,” she said while adding she has also has quite a few “sons”.
Married for over 30 years, Donna has lived in many parts of the world with the longest years being spent in Nairobi, Kenya and up today she still corresponds with the young people she would have met many years ago. She spent some years in London, England and she also has many young people there who she mentors.
“Generally I think I am born to be a counsellor because I go through airports often and people would come up to me, young people particularly… and we would form conversations and relationships,” she said. “I would be going back to Trinidad or Barbados with all these numbers…And when I get in touch and they would want to me meet their parents…
“I have a great time with young people and I think I am young at heart… It is a continual flow of youthful thoughts and activities and positive vibes, you get a lot of positive vibes.”
She feels that too often young people are blamed for the negatives, but they do not have many role models. “If you look at it, there is a vacuum of people my age, and I am over fifty… There are very few around [to be mentors]. So many people left Guyana during the seventies; they didn’t even have their parents. So we blame them for not doing the right thing, but who was there to show them?”
Donna said when she returned to Guyana she found that there was a void in leadership and guidance from people in her age group. “And things that we take for granted — how to set a table, how to make up a bed, basics… Things that we learnt between our parents and our schools, they don’t know. Nobody was there to teach them.”
She spoke about young people not having the ability to speak properly and being stuck with Creolese making it difficulty for them to be understood when they leave the country. “I think I am constantly training. I am constantly advising… because I know it is not too hard to change, not everybody, but the people around you.
“I think up there on who I am is unpaid, nonpaid, abused trainer in everything…”
Reputation
Donna came back to Guyana just after Morvinia Sobers won the Miss Guyana/Universe pageant and it could be because she was asked to work with the young queen that made her change gear. It is not a move she has regretted, but what she has learnt since being part of the designing industry in Guyana is not always pleasant. She tells of meeting people at airports and them telling stories of designers from Guyana who duped them.
“They would ask ‘do you know x’ and I would say ‘yes’ and they would say ‘well they came here with a trade show and they took x amount of money from us and we haven’t seen them’ or ‘they took money from us and when they send the stuff but it is not the same stuff they exhibited’.
“And this is what I keep saying when you build a bad reputation for yourself you can never, no matter how you [try] change [it]. Unfortunately a lot of our popular designers have done that. You can’t fool the public, you can’t exhibit 100% linen and then when you send the order you send it in polyester; they know.
“Your credibility goes to zero, and this is the problem some of our popular designers are facing, I can give you a lot of examples, Barbados, Trinidad, they can’t go back.”
She advises that it is better that designers stay small and keep “your quality high as opposed to getting excited over big orders that you can’t meet and then you get people disappointed; you ruin your credibility, you ruin your finances.”
The designer said her love for her work is not motivated by money since, as she pointed out, if she did it for money she would be broke. “I do this for the love because I am not mass producing. Maybe if I mass produced there would be money but I am an artist and as an artist you can’t mass produce; you shouldn’t mass produce. Any artist who goes greedy and tries to mass produce; you lose the quality, you lose the allure and you lose what makes your work individual.”
‘Designing is a skill’
On the proliferation of designers, Donna repeats what she has constantly said, “designing is a skill. Designing you have to be taught. Designing you have to work with somebody who knows designing and then after many years you can branch off…”
She said it is impossible for someone to just come out of school and call him/herself a designer. “You would like to be a designer; you need to be an apprentice to somebody who has the skills.” She said when one looks at designers in other countries, especially in Europe where she did a lot of work; every one of them would have worked with a designing house before moving off on their own. And in many countries people now go to university to learn the art.
“But for some of us who were before that curve [where you go to university to be taught designing] we worked along with somebody who was a designer. We learned how to cut, what fabric to use, what fabric not to use… You don’t learn that from trial and error; you learn that from someone.”
Asked about the many persons who proclaim that designing is in their blood, Donna said it was in her blood too, as she was cutting and making things since she was a child. Mostly to ensure that she never wore the same dress as her sister.
“So it was in my blood but I couldn’t translate that into saleable high quality, classic, stylish elegant clothes… I did ‘stupidness’. I had to learn at the feet of somebody, so all these designers that we are turning out, they might have skills, it might be in their blood but they need to work the basics of the industry.”
Donna said there is a great need for a designers’ association in Guyana and it would mean that the senior designers would then be in a position to train “this younger everyday turning out crop of designers, work along with them and make them…” But unfortunately, Ramsammy-James described her industry as a “pull-down” one as; designers are all for themselves even though she feels that there is space for all the designers in Guyana because they have different skills.
“Unfortunately I feel sorry for the younger people because we don’t have an association. I mean trying to get designers together in Guyana is like pulling teeth. I have tried and I have given up. Because everybody wants be boss… but we all have different areas. I think we can all work along together and become much stronger.” She feels such an association should have a quality-control persons who would ensure that any item exported would be of a good quality so as to ensure the credibility of designers in Guyana remains intact.
Another bugbear in the industry is the fact that designers always have their customers waiting for their orders. “I have known pageants where five minutes before they still sewing up somebody’s gown. How can that contestant feel if five minutes before the pageant she doesn’t know how her dress will fit?”
She said many persons take too many orders and promise that they would get it done in the requested time and find that they have to much on their plates and as such end up with disgruntled customers.
‘Great future’
Donna called for some sort of institute to be established to teach designers the art of the industry. Her stance on the industry has seen her losing many friends and Donna said she works almost in a cocoon. She admits that she is not perfect but the difference is that she sorts her issues out before it gets to the public.
She said as an industry she thinks it has a great future as she has seen a lot of good work from some of the young designers. But she said they need to be guided and assisted.
“As an industry I think we could become a powerhouse in the Caribbean…,”
She advocates including designing in the curriculum at school. “We need to look at some medium that before somebody can pronounce themselves as a designer they need to have some background.
“Some of us really can be designers who are just sketching constantly; there is stuff in their heads that needs to be get out. Some of us can be seamstresses and some of us can be finishers. There are very few people who are talented enough to do all three.” She pointed out that this is how it works in some of the big designing houses in other parts of the world.
But even though she is sometimes depressed about the industry, Donna is still optimistic that one day it will be where it should be.
As for her, she will continue in the industry, but don’t be too surprised if she opens up a restaurant some time in the future. However, it will not be a Thai restaurant, more than likely, just a high quality one that presents Guyanese food in style. The dance class is also still on the agenda, as she has done it before in Barbados and actually founded the Montserrat National School of Dancing many years ago. (samantha_alleyne2000@yahoo.com)
