To say that we’ve watched the metamorphosis of designer Rachel Scott would be an understatement. An incredible 15 years have passed since the Style Observer (SO) placed her in August 2005 on the verge of a fashion breakthrough. At 21 she was, we shared, all set to stitch her own Jamaican vibes firmly in the competitive world of fashion. She had then recently returned from an intern at 4 Times Square NYC, home of ‘Fashion Bible’ [US] Vogue . At our next sit down Scott had completed studies in French & Studio Art at Colgate University, as well as courses in design at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and the UK’s Central Saint Martin. The Institute Marangoni, Milan, would be her next stop where she completed her master’s degree in Fashion Design (women and menswear).

Instructive, then, that she had this to say: “Some might argue that I took the long route around, but it has all been worth it. I’m now part of the design team at Costume National [Milan, Italy], working with the designer behind the label Ennio Capas …”

Thirteen years later, Scott is a married woman, juggling a new collection and her role as VP, Design at Rachel Comey, and is even more appreciative of the long route. The inclusive pandemic (few have been spared its wrath) has opened her eyes to the importance of slow, steady growth. “The value of careful growth and not wanting to be everywhere,” she opined. “I don’t want to be an Everlane [clothing retail company] and I can do without the huge Silicon Valley investment.”

Another lesson gleaned was: No reason to wait. Indeed, the forced pause from the blistering fashion schedules allowed her time to re-evaluate her position in fashion and to look down the road. “I always thought that there was only room for one! The Black Lives Matter movement has taught differently. There’s room for more than one. I have also been able to function with limited and reduced resources. “I no longer had access to a wide range of material… I took the time to create macrame T-shirts at home.”

She would also reignite her passion to elevate the work of Jamaican artisans, and works closely with a cabal of female crocheters and embroiderers in Kingston and Bonney Gate, St Mary. “You’ll notice the use of both in my collection,” she shares. It has not gone unnoticed!

What’s certainly not gone unnoticed, too, is the impressive coverage received on Friday, April 16 in the venerable The New York Times Style Magazine.

On The Verge

A New Line Inspired by Dancehall and Handicraft

The designer Rachel Scott has honed her skills at brands in Milan and New York, but when it came to creating her own label, Diotima, she looked homeward to Jamaica. The writer Alice Cavanagh interviewed Scott via Zoom from her home in Jamaica where she was on a recent visit.

The collection labelled Diotima pays homage to the strong Caribbean woman and is, according to Scott, quite a departure from the demure offerings she created for the New York brand Rachel Comey.

Her ‘slow fashion walk’ via Costume National in Italy has laid the groundwork for an approach to fashion rooted in a reverence for craft, construction, and fine materials — and her design sensibility, as a Jamaican, grounds her work in the concrete intersection of the historical, political, and the aesthetic.

It is with and through Diotima that Scott looks to confront, challenge, and relate to the complexities surrounding race, gender, and our relationship to work and labour. In as much as design responds to the present, Scott seeks to contextualise, situate, and offer new shape to the intimate ways we think, wear, and share our experiences with fashion.

Scott plans to spend more time in the land of her birth and has already secured an atelier in the foothills of the Blue Mountains. She advises Caribbean design hopefuls to shut out the noise and to simply focus. “Work on your craft… Understand the back end of fashion… The business of fashion. The manufacturing aspect of it…” Most importantly, she implores: “Don’t feel disappointed if your journey in fashion doesn’t happen immediately.”

SO reckons it’s put her in good stead for whatever lies ahead. What she knows for sure is that there’s definitely room for more designers like herself.

When asked who from the region has piqued her interest she mentions Trinbagonian knitwear designer Aisling Camps, London’s new fashion star Maximilian Davis (he too boasts Trini roots) and Rock-blooded Grace Wales Bonner.

Seems there truly is room for more than one.

Instagram:@diotima.world

Website: diotima.world

Credits:

Photographer: Josh Kolbo

Stylist: Anatolli Smith

Models: Sashae Williams (Pulse), & Liyah James (Muse)