April 26, 2024
A talented fashion designer from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has become one of the region’s finest examples of the power of micro businesses to grow and to be competitive in the market.
A visit to Kimmystic.Clo operated by multi-talented entrepreneur Kimon Baptiste-St Rose, reveals a businesswoman who believed in her talent and was prepared to seek the support required to make her vision a reality.
At the close of a regional Fashion Accelerator hosted in 2019 by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in partnership with Caribbean Export Development Agency, Baptiste-St Rose’s Kimmystic.Clo was awarded a USD10,000 Fashion Prize Grant from CDB aimed at improving the competitiveness of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) with the potential for expansion and export.
The fashion designer started with just a basic sewing machine, a passion for design, and a customer base that kept reminding her how pleased they were with the quality of her productions.
She has since developed from a one-woman show to an employer of six. Baptiste-St Rose used her CDB grant award to acquire much needed commercial equipment, access critical training for her employees and received expert enterprise development guidance through the opportunities presented to her by the Cultural and Creative Industries Innovation Fund (CIIF).
“Today I have a staff of six females – four seamstresses, a cutter, and one store-front clerk. My staff received training and I also received training through the CDB’s accelerator programme,” Baptiste-St Rose disclosed.
As a result of the exposure, she was able to elevate her design prowess with refinement of areas outside the production process such as labelling and packaging for export.
“With the training between 2019-2022 that I was able to put in effect, I am extremely proud to say that the Kimmystic brand is a high quality, authentic Vincentian brand. Everything is done in Saint Vincent. Whenever I travel with the brand, there is a sense of pride in being able to say that this came from the training that I got through the accelerator programme which was funded by CDB,” the designer and entrepreneur stated.
In an interview from Jamaica where she was attending The Collection MoDA fashion showcase, Baptiste-St Rose revelled in the excitement that her Kimmystic.Clo brand was generating at the spectacular event, which “provides a business platform for designers and creative thinkers”.
Jamaica has been a successful market for the Vincentian brand where it is available in Kingston. The brand is also sold in Antigua, two locations in St Lucia in the famed Sea Island Cotton Shop and in a hotel space in Barbados.
All this from the entrepreneur who started sewing for friends and family from her home.
“I went to a trade show for the first time in India [in 2023] through a CDB CIIF project reference provided to UN Women Caribbean for consideration. That one was challenging because it was not a market that I am familiar with, and so, I was nervous about taking the product there. I was not sure how the brand would be appreciated; however, it was well accepted. I made good connections, leads, and fostered interest from a store in India. One of the important takeaways was the extent to which the programme I did with CDB inspired me; the support I got from them helped to build that confidence that I needed to be able to comfortably sell my brand,” she affirmed.
With the success the Kimmystic.Clo has achieved so far, Baptiste-St Rose has her sights set on expansion.
“I have been working very hard to create that visibility the brand requires and so I have to be able to keep up with the demand. I need to once again create a larger space to sew fabric, which I now have to order in bulk, just to make my cutter and the production team a little more comfortable when they are putting together the garments. Frankly, at this point I need to expand because the business is really growing. I need more employees and I need more physical space for our operations,” she disclosed.
Offering advice to fledgling entrepreneurs, Baptiste-St Rose said being open to professional advice and regular training were critical.
She added: “In business you always have to be creative and innovative. When the COVID pandemic hit, had I not kept that creative mindset in terms of my approach to business, everything would have fallen apart. It is also important for you to be resilient. At the first ‘no’ or negative review, you cannot retreat. You have to keep going; take the positives from it and learn. That’s why I can say there are no difficult customers. Somebody who seems difficult is really challenging you to be better.”