Jawara Alleyne Is Inviting Us All Into His World

Walking through the intimate galleries of the National Gallery of Cayman Islands, it’s clear that destruction is a form of construction for designer and artist Jawara Alleyne. Ripped pages from his sketchbooks, fabric trims, and countless Polaroids from his archive jostle for space alongside his clothing—often spliced or draped twisted pieces of found fabric or reimagined preexisting garments delicately held together by safety pins.

They’re the sort of clothes that make a statement. Yet in a formal setting, these pieces take on a transformative and informative life of their own. The colors and shapes speak to the vibrancy of the Caribbean islands and Alleyne’s own island upbringing. (Alleyne grew up in the Cayman Islands, is also of Jamaican heritage, and now resides in London.)

Just ask another famed islander, the Barbadian Rihanna, who has been an early champion of Alleyne’s, regularly wearing his designs and declaring him her favorite new designer in her most recent Interview magazine cover story. But beneath the surface, his clothing tells a deeper and more complex story of the culture of the Cayman Islands, which is on display in “Jawara Alleyne: Island Underground,” a solo exhibition that serves as part retrospective and part celebration of the past, present, and future of Cayman creativity.

“[When I left the Cayman Islands] I said to myself, I’m done with anything that has to do with the Caribbean. This is not interesting to me. This is not what I want to do. I was so obsessed with designers like Galliano and McQueen and Karl [Lagerfeld] and Alber Elbaz,” Jawara explains as he walks me through the exhibition. “Then I realized it’s almost like I had to reject myself to find myself in a sense. I really kind of understood that the most important thing that I had to give to the industry, to the world, to whatever is the experiences that I’ve had coming from the places that I come from.”

Island Underground,” in Alleyne’s words, is a “cultural declaration” split across three distinct spaces that include his most recent runway collections, Beach Business, Eye of the Storm, and Island Underground. Assembled with Natalie Urquhart, National Gallery director and the exhibition’s curator, the exhibition also pays homage to the island’s artistic talent, including the late painter Bendel Hydes and the prolific Native Sons collective, which included Wray Banker and Al Ebanks as well as Ann Marie “Hairstyle” Tomlinson and Gerald “Bogle” Levy. Alleyne draws parallels between their work and his own, at the same time telling a story of Caymanian life that is deeply personal and nuanced.

“I think what is tone deaf is this idea that culture is an export,” he says. “There’s a take, take, take, take, take, but there’s never any give. So for me it was really important to speak about my culture, but also to speak to my culture so that there’s a two-way dialogue and never just me extracting and not giving anything back.”

Though Alleyne has only been showing his work since 2020, he was always sure of a future in fashion design. The lack of creative funding and support for young people on the island is something Alleyne, Urquhart, the gallery, and the ministry of tourism are keen to change, with the latter supporting Alleyne’s latest London Fashion Week display. The gallery has worked with Alleyne since he was a student, and “Island Underground” will be open for local schools to be able to enjoy, with workshops and screenings.

The show crescendos into a final room, with Hydes’s large-scale paintings from his Circumnavigating the Globe series paired alongside abstract fabric collages that Alleyne made in response to the work. A metaphor perhaps for Alleyne’s exciting trajectory—an ode to the past, complete with his own eccentric spin. “For me, it’s about looking at what a next version [of things] can look like. I’m really interested, in this era of my career where I can take risks, to just try different ways of doing, figuring out how I can present and create a collection that doesn’t have to follow the same lines as it normally does.”

Jawara Alleyne: Island Underground is on show at the National Gallery Cayman Islands until February 7, 2025.