Style Notes – What the Island Is Wearing Right Now 

Skip the Forecast, Read the Street 

Forget the trend report. Whatever’s actually happening at the beach, the market, the studio right now is the source material everyone else eventually catches up to, months later, at a markup. So skip the forecast. Here’s the status report instead. 

Natural Materials, Finally Getting Their Flowers 

Jermaine Edwards has spent years arguing that coconut shell and bamboo belong on a jewellery bench, not a souvenir table. “Getting people to see premium in those same materials required patience and a clear-eyed strategy. I put the work in spaces where people expect quality and let it sit there and speak. Once someone actually holds one of the pieces, the assumption breaks.” It’s finally happening, natural, local material taken seriously as luxury instead of novelty. Worth picking one up in-store to feel the difference for yourself. 

Specific Beats Generic, Every Time 

Davia Hines built her whole design language around exactly this idea. A Papaya earring from a road sign near Negril. A bestselling Ackee and Breadfruit pair that works precisely because it’s not vague. “They say something true about where we come from without needing any explanation.” Real ackee, real breadfruit, real roadside detail, not a generic palm-and-hibiscus shorthand copy-pasted onto everything. 

Sustainability Stopped Being Optional 

Latoya Spence built theyellowroom_studio around fashion’s overproduction problem head-on. “A bag is used more than almost any single garment. It works across outfits, across seasons, across years. It counters the single-wear, single-use culture in a quiet but meaningful way.” Her bags, shaped like flowers, finished with banana leaves cut from burlap and vegan leather, point at a bigger shift happening across the island: sustainability as a design principle, not a marketing sticker. 

Saffron Brown of Safari Swimwear is chasing the same goal from another angle, “100% sustainable fabrics, ethical production all the way through” within five years. That used to be niche. It’s fast becoming table stakes. 

Old Craft, New Eyes 

Sydia Sidcile is pulling Jippi Jappa straw, a fiber worked in Jamaica for generations, into current silhouettes, drawing on “global design, nature, architecture” for inspiration while staying rooted in the same technique passed down through her family. Old craft, current eye. That combination is popping up everywhere this season, not just in straw, but in beadwork, crochet, jewellery too. 

Where to Actually See It First 

If you want a real-time read on what’s moving instead of a forecast written months in advance, skip the runway and check the shelves at Things Jamaican, where 25+ different Jamaican fashion & accessories brands sit side by side, updated as each maker drops new work. Less a store, more a live index. New drops land throughout the season, and half the fun is catching a piece before everyone else does. Keep an eye on where beadwork and straw start borrowing techniques from each other, or crochet swimwear shows up under a straw hat; that’s usually the earliest signal a piece is about to have a real moment. 

Nobody’s Waiting for a Trend Cycle 

The most refreshing thing about tracking Jamaican fashion in real time is watching how little it cares about traditional trend timing. A maker doesn’t wait for a “right season” to release something they’re proud of. It goes out the moment it’s ready, and the culture around it moves at that pace instead of a calendar’s. Natural materials elevated to luxury, hyper-specific over generic, sustainability as a given rather than a bonus, old technique meeting new eyes. That’s the island’s actual mood board this season, no runway required, and it’s worth catching before the current drops sell out and the next wave replaces them. 

Shop Things Jamaican in-store at Devon House, NMIA, and 14 Camp Road, or online at thingsjamaicanshopping.com. Wear Jamaica Fi Summa. 

Editorial Team

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