Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine April 2017 | Page 497

C herie’s Cee Wee Designs journey began in 2011. She began designing bags after graduating from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica. Cherie laughingly considers her B.A. in Linguistics, with a double minor in Caribbean Sign Language, Interpreting and Zoology to be an unusual combination, however, to her already impressive accompliments she added that of handbag designs which allows her to explore and express her artistic impulses. Cee Wee’s first designs were made predominantly of burlap and focused on brightly coloured and festive clutch bags. These designs demonstrated the vibrant nature of the Caribbean. They have since diversified their medium to include faux leather and a wide range of other materials. These beautifully crafted designs showcased on the runway at Caribbean Fashion Week in 2014 & 2015, which was a proud accomplishment, as the Caribbean Fashion Week is arguably the Caribbean’s most far- reaching and longest running Fashion Week and highly acclaimed. In 2016, Cee Wee Designs débuted their collection, “Crosswalk”, at Tobago Fashion Coda. “Crosswalk” featured 11 pieces, all made using different combinations of black and white faux leather, as well as black-and-white graphic prints.