When you’re Rihanna’s favourite designer, you already know your collections will turn heads, but Fashion East alumni Jawara Alleyne doesn’t let that heat get to him. Instead he channels it into his designs. This season, for Spring/Summer 2025, Jawara Alleyne - the GOAT when it comes to distressed, deconstructed, and reconstructed fashion - revealed a collection that’s an ode to the vibrant culture and storytelling of the Cayman Islands, in a show he calls “Island Underground.”
As is the case with most of Alleyne’s collections, his heritage coming from Jamaica and the Cayman Islands plays a significant role. This season we see it transformed into a fresh vision drawn from the experiences and shared cultural identities of the Cayman Islands’ people. While we know Jawara Alleyne already has Rihanna’s backing, at SS25 he also has the support of the Cayman Islands Government, through the Ministry of Department of Tourism and the Ministry of Culture.
Speaking on the designer’s work, Minister of Culture, Honourable Dwayne Seymour said “Jawara celebrates the authenticity of our culture while pushing the boundaries of modern fashion. His work not only honours our past but reimagines it for future generations.” And this much was evident at SS25, seen in a collection that used bright hues, animated fabrics, and textured layering to reference the vibrancy of Jawara Alleyne’s culture.
Every element of the collection was inspired by the tiny three-island Caribbean archipelago and its people, even down to the colour palette which Alleyne described is meant to mimic “the way you see colour reflected off water.” From Alleyne’s infamous safety pins, a common feature of his designs, to dreamy knot-work and distressed reconstruction, “Island Underground” taps into the environment, history, and style of the Cayman Islands’ locals for inspiration.
Arguably Alleyne’s fabric manipulation is one of his collections’ most impactful design features, and this season sees fabrics draped and tucked into dresses; cut and layered to make skirts; and twisted and tied over more casual straight-legged trousers. The bright, bold palette of the collection references the Cayman Islands’ national iconography, as does Alleyne’s work with Caymanian artists like Stefan Langlios, who worked on the collection’s visual language, and Natalie Urquhart, who curated the themes of the collection.
Considering how interwoven culture is in Jawara Alleyne’s SS25 collection, a collaboration with footwear brand Timberland feels fitting. Due to the brand’s influence within hip hop, Timbs have long been a staple of the Caribbean footwear narrative, with the Original Yellow Boot no foreigner to the Cayman Islands where Alleyne grew up. For this reason, Alleyne’s styling of Timberland’s classic shoe on his SS25 runway just makes sense; both brand’s represent authenticity and the power that culture has on fashion.
On the runway the classic Timberland Original Yellow Boot is paired with a myriad of looks, often adorned with bright, twisted fabrics which lace up the front of the shoe or wrap around the ankle in distressed Jawara Alleyne style. As Jawara Alleyne said of the “Island Underground” collection and his collaboration with Timberland this season, “it's about more than just fashion - it’s about honouring where I come from and sharing that story with the world.
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