Rhaj Paul in a quandary

RHAJ PAUL: unsure of where he will get his funding. (Guest Picture)

By Natanga Smith Hurdle | Sat, August 25, 2012 - 12:03 AM

DESIGNER RHAJ PAUL is stuck between a rock and hard place.

He has until Monday to pay BDS$6 000 for a course at the prestigious Savile Row Academy in London or forfeit his space. Rhaj said he has exhausted all avenues and has nowhere else to turn.

“Every two years the course takes 12 students. I am the only West Indian in the 12 picked for this upcoming 18-month course,” he told the SATURDAY SUN, adding that he was accepted to the course in July and that the first class starts September 10.

“I have spoken to Minister [of Industry, Small Business and Rural Development Denis] Kellman. The cost of the entire course is $50 000. But this is just a training course, not an accredited one or one with a degree, and that is where the problem lies.

“I have gone to the Student Revolving Loan Fund, the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation, Invest Barbados,” lamented Rhaj, who said he would also have to travel back and forth between London and Barbados for the 18 months since a student visa was also out of the question.

He said he had since received a call from the Ministry of Industry informing him that the “funding wasn’t working out”.

Rhaj noted that the high level of training he would receive could not be questioned.

The course is run by world renowned master tailor Professor Andrew Ramroop, OBE, at his Savile Row Academy (SRA) in London.

At 50 years old, Ramroop, a Trinidadian, has been globally recognized for his work in bespoke tailoring. In 2005 he received the Chaconia Gold Medal from the president of Trinidad and Tobago; three years later he was appointed by the Queen to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and since 2002 the W.E.B. DuBois Institute of Harvard University has offered an annual prize in his name. He has twice captured the title of Best Men’s Wear: Design, Cut and Fit in the Golden Shears Awards, considered the Oscars of tailoring.

Ramroop has taken on six of the SRA trainees so far and all past students of the SRA are employed in and around Savile Row.

Ramroop said that with the 18 months of training, “Rhaj will be well equipped to start his own bespoke tailoring business of a high class”.

Ramroop said he has clients in 57 countries, including Barbados, Trinidad and Grenada and “[Rhaj] has the whole of the West Indies and farther afield to make his name after finishing the course”.

At home Rhaj is trying to source some of the funding by doing a T-shirt line, but that is still not enough.

Self-taught for the most part, Rhaj has gone beyond being a technology student of the Barbados Community College and theology student at the Caribbean Union College in Trinidad.

He started the Rhaj Paul Project in 2005, buzzing around the fashion industry with his cotton shirts, fray-edged finishes, blunt collars and rich colours in an extensive use of fabric.

That label has folded but not Rhaj Paul’s ambition.

“All I want to do is to know how to make a great suit. I want to be able to cut and fit perfectly, to be able to create work that will please and benefit my clients and make me feel proud to be part of the sartorial tradition.”

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Posted by SANDREA BUTCHER 8 months, 3 weeks ago: Fourteen years ago Rhaj Paul made an olive green linen pants for me that fit perfectly. He should be given the opportunity to pursue this course of study. Saville Row is the creme de la creme of fashion design. His skills would be honed and the fashion design industry in Barbados would be even better. Rhaj Paul would be able to fashion a suit for a man like the bespoke tailors from fine establishments like Ozwald Boateng, Gianni Campagna, Dege and Skinner, Anderson and Sheppard, Henry Poole and Caraceni.

Bespoke tailoring means that the suit is made to the customers specifications and literally put together using the customer as a mannequin. Rhaj Paul could outfit stars, Presidents, royalty, Prime Ministers. Who knows, maybe Owen Arthur would not have to have to be fitted in Miami all the time for his Stacy Adams suits. This could be EPIC.

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Posted by Noelle Kirton 8 months, 3 weeks ago: David Kirton has been sporting a Rhaj Paul suit that to this day still looks modern and cutting edge.... He is capable of having a major collection stemming from Barbados....... Culture is the way forward in the modern world, unique brands differentiate us from the rest.....

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Posted by Trina Headley 8 months, 3 weeks ago: Does the government mean business when it talks about giving the cultural industries and entrepreneurship a booster? International cultural icons and Nobel laureates are the children of island homes.

Isn’t it time that we objectively evaluate the bases of our nation’s wealth? In Barbados, there was a paucity of precious metals and oil gold. We claimed the PEOPLE as the chief cornerstone of national development. The rest is known. Education was unleashed on the masses and the acceleration towards development commenced.

We have arrived at a point in time, where simply developing human capital for the dual purpose of serving the selfish interests of local elites on the one hand and interests that are alien and contrary to the People’s progress on the other, is not good enough.

It is ok for the government to squander monies on uninspired projects and ailing industries, areas of endeavour pursued mulishly and bound to doom while the inestimable benefit of cultural industries to a holistic national development approach flounders in their idle words.

How many cultural innovators must go in self-imposed exile? Will Rhaj Paul be another castaway like the Walcotts and Naipauls and Brathwaites before him?

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Posted by Frank Husbands 8 months, 3 weeks ago: If Rhaj Paul was any good at making clothes he should be able to raise the money from his sewing as it is a small sum,less than 2,000.00.pounds.I hope we in Barbados see that higher education abroad must be paid for by the individual is an accepted practice.In London England a few months ago students rioted because they had to pay higher tertiary education fees. We here believe it is a God given right not to pay and expect someone else to, as oppose to working and saving to achieve our education.No wonder the bespoke Tailor Rhaj Paul is out with hat in hand.

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Posted by Kenneth King 8 months, 3 weeks ago: I agree with all those who give good words here but still, how many more young folks would ask and what about me; he has the skills to make clothing even at this moment...the opportunities are there where he can make and I'm sure people will buy but I am still at the same point. Things like this needs planning before you enter, like organizing a concert or fashion show, cake sale anything that can generate funds to cover Mr: Rhaj Paul expenses. barbadians will respond, I am sure. But I am not sure with the Government giving this sum out would be a good idea because many parents will want to know what about my child as well. To those who have had worked done by him can work together in those points I've made and maybe Rhaj Paul can make that next class.

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Posted by SANDREA BUTCHER 8 months, 3 weeks ago: @Frank Husbands, let us not be petty and insulting by using statements like "If Rhaj Paul was any good at making clothes..", and "out with hat in hand". If indeed Rhaj Paul makes it big people will be saying "Oh, he is a Bajan yuh know", or "He grow up out in Haggatt Hall by me".
Tunnel vision stifles creativity.