Much has happened since the last time SO spoke to designer Antoinette Messam. Firstly, she now sports a low Afro; secondly, she’s given up the chill of Toronto and has, to use her own words: “moved south”. South is Los Angeles where Messam has stepped into the bright lights of the film industry.

“I still have my I Style line which is carried in major north coast hotels, but I just felt that I needed to enter another phase.” That is no idle boast for the woman who attended Broughton Primary School in the parish of Westmoreland before joining her parents Evelyn Sterling Messam and Edward Messam, a mechanic in Toronto, Canada. Antoinette describes her mother as an “amazing seamstress and designer” from whom she believes she “developed her style”. College, notably the Academy of Merchandising and Design in Toronto, coupled with courses in Art and PR for the Arts at the Ontario College of Art (OCAD), might have placed Messam in good stead, but it was a designer who recommended her for a television series, notably Catwalk 2, even though she had “only bought for two other designers before” but felt that she could learn on the job, which gave her that big break. “I went backwards after that series,” explains Messam, “and worked different positions in film and costume from other perspectives.”

With the Warner Bros thriller Orphan under her belt and Love, Wedding, Marriage – featuring Jane Seymour and Mandy Moore – slated for general release next spring and yet another in the pipeline, it’s little wonder that Messam is happily enjoying the festive season and is eager to present her Christmas collection this afternoon at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel. We look forward to watching the credits for costume designer Antoinette Messam, and who knows? Perhaps an Oscar nomination in the not-too-distant future.