By: Staff Writer
February 3, 2023
How does a young woman born in St Lucia find her way to Paris by way of London? She made the most of her opportunities and now she is blazing her path through the competitive fashion world and enjoying every single moment of it.
Petra Baptiste, owner and lead creator of Island Empress, a growing fashion house in Paris France, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that despite moving half way across the world to live her she still dreams of her home. “I have lived outside of St Lucia for over 20 years now, but St Lucia is still home. I don’t think there’s anywhere any place that can beat Caribbean life. I’ve travelled the world and to me there is something about other countries that are just not going to amount to what the islands the islands give you.”
This 41 year old was born in St Lucia, move to London with her mother where she resided for 18 years and now has been living in Paris for the past five years, trying to make a dent in the fashion world.
Despite her nomadic instinct, she still reaches out to her home country of St Lucia and is planning a great deal of philanthropic endeavours that she hopes will spread across the wider Caribbean as the Island Empress brand stretches out. She also said: “At the moment, what we’re doing is making Island Empress’s presence be felt on a larger scale, hence the reason why I’m currently trying to get features in magazines and podcast interviews and radio interviews.”
Ms Baptiste is also bringing out a male line of clothing this year. “We are all together where we are all one basically, so that is coming out for 2023 and I am in talks with the education ministry in St. Lucia to start the charity aspects of Island Empress as well. And that includes education and even dearer to my heart is domestic violence against women.
“So those are the three major things that I’m looking at at the moment. But that does not mean that I’m not willing to tackle other issues, but I believe that it’s a good idea to start with what I’m comfortable with and to start where my knowledge lies.
“So I’m starting there and I’m starting on my island first and the idea is that whatever initiative Island Empress is doing, to take it throughout the Caribbean.”
It takes a lot of courage and personal conviction to move to another country to follow your dreams, learn a new language and integrate with the people, but Ms Baptiste said she never saw herself as brave or courageous, she just saw herself as following her passion and dreams. “I have not even looked at it like that. I just saw my life as using opportunities when I get it because that’s what we all want in life. We get on our knees and we pray for opportunities, but when we get them, we allow fear to stop us.”
She also said: “When I first came to Paris it was a culture shock. In the sense that when I first arrived, I brought that Caribbean flare and then I had that British influence, so that mixture was quite loud. Because the people here they’re very conservative, the women here are very conservative and when I say conservative, for example like in the Caribbean, women will walk around with short pants but if you dress like that over a here, people look at you strange.
She continued, “The women here are very conservative and when I say conservative, we going talk about for instance, in the summertime, women are going to walk around with a pair of jeans under a summer dress and a cardigan on top of the dress.”
Fearless and bold is what makes Island Empress special and Ms Baptiste is pushing to make it a success.
Congratulations. I am very proud of you.
Thank you so much Nora.
You are appreciated and so are your kind words.