Morgan Kret was looking for something the Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC) had just spent months developing.
The founder of handcrafted apparel and accessories brand Geometric wanted to produce more of her collection in Jamaica, but she needed the right technical skills. Central to her vision were hand-dyed textiles, particularly batik, supported by the pattern-making, cutting, sewing and garment construction needed to take a design from concept to finished product.
After three or four trips to Kingston searching for the right people, Kret was getting close to giving up.
“I was like, I can’t find anyone who’s doing this hand-dyeing and being able to produce it from start to finish, finishing the garments,” she recalled.
Geometric Meets Jadire´
At JBDC, however, another piece of the puzzle was already taking shape.
The agency had recently supported creatives in developing hand-dyeing skills through training in Jadire´ and batik techniques. Jadire´ is an African-Jamaican batik technique born out of a bilateral agreement between the Nigerian High Commission and the Government of Jamaica.
Having developed the technical capacity, JBDC’s next concern was creating opportunities for those skills to generate business. JBDC Fashion Designer, Robert Hall said the team organised a Jadire´ buying event to introduce the newly trained creatives to designers, clothing producers and other potential clients.
“The focus was really about having persons who were in fashion, persons who make clothing, persons who could be using their services, to have them see what they were doing and begin to speak about business moving forward, possible partnerships, having products moving to stores,” Hall explained.
Kret saw the work and recognised the opportunity almost immediately.
Geometric was started while she was living in Ghana, where she learned hand-dyeing techniques and built relationships with women-owned artisan businesses. The brand, which produces handcrafted apparel, accessories and homeware, had already reached customers through online sales, pop-ups and trunk shows.
When Kret moved the brand to Jamaica in 2023, she wanted to build similar relationships here.
“I wanted to do it in Jamaica because I have roots in Jamaica and I really wanted to be part of growing this textile handcrafted industry here,” she said.
The JBDC buying event gave her the first indication that the skills she had been searching for were available locally.
“They were looking for a way to support their new skill and they were looking for a way to market and monetise their craft,” Kret said. “So, it was like a perfect meeting of minds and skills and abilities.”
About a month later, Kret returned to JBDC and the team began mapping what would be required to support Geometric’s production in Jamaica.
“We did a kind of pool at the time, mapping of what that ecosystem might look like,” Hall said.
That meant identifying the people required at different stages of production, from dyers and fabric producers to pattern-makers, cutters and garment makers. The process also included sizing, sampling and design guidance.
For Kret, the Fashion Incubator located inside JBDC Incubator & Resource Centre at 10a, 76 Marcus Garvey Drive in Kingston, became a place to work through those details collaboratively.
“JBDC really gave us the space and the expertise to hone our products,” she said. “They were able to give us that scaffolding and structure and guidance.”
That guidance extended to decisions about fabrics, dyes, colours and prints, as well as adjustments that could make a design easier to replicate and communicate to the artisans producing it.
JBDC also connected Kret with creatives including Charmaine Brown of Jessica’s Fashion, Simone Gordon and Jacqueline Mason-Reid. Those introductions have since developed into ongoing production relationships, with Kret working with them regularly.
Geometric continues to work with artisans outside Jamaica, including businesses in Ghana and Turkey, but Kret estimates that more than 80 percent of the brand’s pieces are now made in Jamaica. She said the proportion produced locally has increased since she began working with JBDC.
Without that intervention, the outcome might have been different.
“If I hadn’t found JBDC, I probably would have worked with some seamstresses that I know, but I don’t think I would have centred my production here,” she said. “I maybe would have worked more in another country.”
For Hall, what has happened with Geometric provides a small-scale example of a much larger possibility for Jamaica’s fashion industry.
“This is a micro model of ideally what we want to happen,” he said.
Developing a textile industry, he explained, creates locally produced raw materials that designers can transform into higher-value products. The textile itself can also carry a distinctly Jamaican identity and story, adding another layer of value to the finished garment.
“The fact that you actually have this Jamaican-based phenomenon, with this very rich story, that can actually feed into the value of your product – This is literally what we’re talking about, being able to put that individual stamp on the textile and allow that to basically add value to the rest of the ecosystem,” Hall said.
Geometric’s experience shows another side of JBDC as The Fashion Place. JBDC had developed skills within one group of creatives, created an opportunity to put those skills before the market, recognised what Geometric needed and helped assemble the relationships required to move from textile to finished garment.
