At 20, Alexandra Willabus concedes that where her future is concerned she is still straddling fences. Over the past two years she has turned her passion for fashion into creating ‘pretty things’ with her hands and gradually finding a modest market which, she says, is expanding sufficiently to persuade her to persist. On the other hand she continues to be shadowed by intellectual ambitions which she hopes will one day take her into Guyana’s diplomatic service. In that regard she is currently pursuing studies at the University of Guyana which she expects will reward her with a B.Soc.Sci. in International Relations.
The challenge of dividing her time between Eccentric Creations, the emerging enterprise which she hopes will satisfy a strong entrepreneurial ambition and completing her degree has severely tested her sense of discipline. There was a period she said when her obligation to her academic studies became compromised by her competing preoccupations. Experience, she says, has taught her to manage that balancing act more effectively.
Working with her hands is a skill which Alexandra refined during her sojourn as a student of creative disciplines at North Georgetown Secondary School. What has long been a knack for fashioning reality out of the creative imagination is now taking shape in pleasing objects that are attended by an encouraging level of consumer demand. Her products comprise a range of eye-catching accessories and body-adorning accoutrements – mostly, necklaces, wrist bands, ear rings, broaches and a broader range of fashion pieces created out of an assortment of fibre, fabric, beads and strings which are twisted and tied into fashion pieces to accentuate the clothing worn by men, women and children.
Beyond those, Alexandra has extended herself further, making encouraging inroads into the market for bigger pieces, insignia, banners and heraldry, which these days, are in demand by theatres and festivals. Mashramani this year afforded her a modest, but (according to her) particularly encouraging opening, into what she sees as a likely lucrative market up ahead.
If she is encouraged by what she believes is a growing public acceptance of both the creative and commercial value of her handiwork, she concedes that she is experiencing the pressures of having to manage a small business. Hers, she says, is as much an aptitude as a taught skill, so that she works mostly alone, the only support on the production side coming from her mother whom she mischievously describes as being “in training.” Her maternal grandmother, who resides in Canada, plays a key role in sourcing raw material for her work.
It is fast approaching two years since she got her first break to display her work at a church fair. There is, these days, a greater appreciation of what she does, though growth continues to be inhibited by marketing and public display limitations. Her forthcoming second exposure at this year’s Women In Business event, is she says, “something to look forward to.” Her first exposure, she says, offered her a welcome opportunity to “meet people,” and to market her goods.
These days, Alexandria says, she senses that she is living on the edge of a dream of getting to the point of parading her talents more frequently on a stage that has yielded pleasing growth over the past two years. Still, she persists with academia, determined to measure up to what she says are “family expectations” that keep her anchored to the goal of finishing her degree. There continues to be times, she says, when her preoccupation with responding to orders from customers demands that she make adjustments. “It’s easier these days because I have developed the discipline to cope with it,” she says. Alexandra can be reached at: Alexis2willabus@gmail.com
