Grandma inspires nurse to follow designer dreams

When Kersea Stewart was a young girl, she often spent her summer holidays sewing buttons onto uniforms for her dressmaker grandmother Helena Thompson-Gayle.

Frustrated by the idea of staying inside while all the other children were outside basking in the St Elizabeth sun, she became resentful.

"I was so upset when she used to ask me to put on the buttons because it's summertime and you want to go and play with your friends or whatever," Stewart chuckled, recalling the now fond memories. She explained that even though her disdain of the work only grew, she was always artistic, drawing and painting from an early age.

Fast forward several years later, Stewart decided to employ those simple sewing skills she honed to make some quick cash doing alterations for partygoers on campus of The University of the West Indies. Soon realising that she could make outfits from scratch, she launched her fashion line, By Seah in 2018.

"I went on work and travel [programme] and we ordered some bikinis on Amazon and when I got them and I tried them on, I was looking at the quality. And I was thinking to myself, I should really try and make some of these ... not necessarily thinking of selling the bikinis," she said.

Now back on the island and stocked up with materials from a local fabric store, Stewart recalled that at that point, she wasn't even sure how to measure or cut.

"So I went on YouTube and I looked at how to do it and the first piece didn't come out looking wonderful. So I tried and tried and tried and made it to fit my body and my friends, and I sent it to my mom and she was like 'they look nice'. So here comes this idea now to actually start making bikinis and start selling and make some money because as a university student, it's really hard to have extra money to do anything at all," she said.

"When I started the business she (her grandmother) was so proud. She passed away in January of last year, actually two days before my birthday, and the plan that I had was that when I graduated, I would spend my days around her for her to teach me how to perfect everything," she said.

She continued, "She was really impressed because as I told you, she would normally focus on business attire and school uniforms. So when I would show her the skimpy bikinis, she would say 'OK, I see the modern style' and she would love them."

Stewart shared that up to when her grandmother passed, she was quick to share her wisdom on how she could improve the quality of her work. Now armed with a degree in nursing, Stewart hopes to use her career in medicine to finance her fashion dreams.

"I graduated last November so I'm actually waiting on the licence to practise out here in Jamaica. But the plan is to truly do fashion designing full-time. I plan to use the funds from my nursing programme to push into my business, so I don't have to work as a nurse full-time because my passion is design, really and truly," she said.