The Veteran Costume Designers Who Define Brooklyn J'Ouvert

By Ella Napack, The City

August 15, 2024

Flatbush gets a bit noisier in August, as the sound of Calypso floats over Church Avenue every night of the week and steel band practice ramps up on 48th Street.

It’s all in preparation for the West Indian Day Carnival, a celebration of Caribbean culture and heritage that takes place every Labor Day on Eastern Parkway. The mas bands, the dozens of troupes that organize the carnival, begin their rehearsals and festivities as early as late July — and then kick the parade off in an early morning ritual known as J’ouvert, Creole for “daybreak.”

Designers make and sell thousands of costumes at each band’s camp, where members prepare and party throughout the month until the big bang at summer’s end. The outfits debut at 6 a.m. down Flatbush Avenue on Labor Day, marking the start of the carnival.

J’Ouvert designer Karen Hypolite Herbert prepares a costume at the Flatbush camp for band 2J Friends, Aug. 2, 2024. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

The designers for JouvayFest Collective, a group from Trinidad and Tobago, have each been sewing and stitching some of the carnival’s iconic costumes for decades.

Wednesday through Friday, for all of August, the designers arrive at 9 p.m. to a backyard on Troy Avenue in East Flatbush. They stay until after 2 a.m., fashioning and selling intricately crafted lace gowns and wire-bent headpieces.

For the makers, it’s hard work, they say, as each night at the camp is a party with a DJ, fried bake-and-shark, and beer. The designers work in an open garage next to the backyard’s string-lit dance floor, with mannequins sporting costumes in the middle of the party.

J’Ouvert costume designers party at their Flatbush camp during the month leading up to the parade, Aug. 2, 2024. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

“It takes a lot to do what we do, but we love it, we love our culture,” said Sandra Bell, a third-generation carnival costume designer and lead curator for JouvayFest and their band, 2J and Friends.

The band’s costumes stand out in the crowd. Though some of Brooklyn’s J’ouvert-goers parade in body paint, chalk and clay, the collective is committed to a more theatrical and elaborate version of dressing up, or playing mas, with intricately crafted masquerade dresses and big headpieces.

“We present a story on the streets,” said Kendell Julien, who coordinates the costumes for the collective.

Playing mas is a historic part of the pre-dawn carnival festivities. In the late 18th century, French plantation owners hosted masquerade balls that their enslaved workers were forbidden from participating in. As such, the slaves began to use what they could find to reproduce the festivities in the early hours of the morning, explained Bell.

“We painted and powdered and mimicked,” said Bell. “Every drum beat fought authority.”

Sandra A.M. Bell is the lead curator of a J’Ouvert costume design collective in Flatbush, Aug. 2, 2024. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

She explained that J’ouvert was born as a form of resistance and social commentary on oppression, which the bands try to keep alive today. “We had to fight for this,” she said.

J’ouvert costumes typically range from mud masks, colorful chalk and rags to folklore characters.

J’Ouvert designer Natalie prepares costumes at the Flatbush camp for band 2J Friends, Aug. 2, 2024. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

The collective does what Julien calls a “fancy theater” take on playing mas, with more complex scenes and rich storylines for their characters.

“J’ouvert is evolving, every period there is something added and taken away,” said Julien who says he is excited about how much more they can do with materials ordered online. “Now we can buy fabric and materials and invest in telling our stories in a more elaborate way.”

This year, the group is reenacting a traditional Tobago wedding, titled “Dis Weddin Sweet.” Julien thought of the theme after a recent visit to Tobago, where he was inspired by one of the island’s yearly traditional wedding reenactments.

The designers are making costumes for seven different characters, each to be worn by at least 20 people. Each costume costs anywhere from $125 to $250.

“I love when I put something together and it looks fantastic,” said designer Karen Hypolite Herbert, who will play the “mother giver” in the wedding. “Designing costumes is my life.” Her entire camera roll is nearly filled with images of the hundreds of costumes she has made over the 45 years she has been designing.

J’Ouvert designer Kendell Julien prepares costumes at the Flatbush camp for band 2J Friends, Aug. 2, 2024. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

Her costume, along with a dozen other special costumes in the band, will be a surprise on J’ouvert morning. None of the designers will give even a hint about what they will look like, other than to say that they will blow the crowd away.

On Labor Day, the band starts gathering in their costumes around 4 a.m. near Flatbush Avenue, though the parade itself does not start until 6 a.m.

“You have to make sure to get enough rest and take a B12 vitamin,” said Bell. “And get ready for the best party of the year.”

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.