-deservingly wins ‘Designer of the Year’ title for Mashramani 2023

By Faith Greene
GUYANA’S Mashramani celebrations returned this year in all its grandeur with beautiful floats and costumes being displayed during the February 23 parade.

While several “big names” were behind the floats that made their way through the streets of Georgetown, one costume and fashion designer’s work, captured the attention of the judges thus earning him the title, “Designer of the Year.”

In an interview with the Buzz, Nelsion Nurse revealed that while Mashramani celebrations were postponed due to COVID-19 for two years, he did not let that hinder his creative streak.

He explained that during that time he was still creating various costume concepts for Mashramani.

Speaking directly about the designs that were presented on the road this year, Nurse related that he paid keen attention to the various ministries’ budget presentations and what their focus would be on. He then used that knowledge to craft the various designs.

“So, it’s easy for me to put that into a concept. If education is big on technology, I’ll do a concept based on technology because I know that’s their focus for that year,” he said.

This year, the designer said he worked with four bands: Heritage, which was his band; the Ministry of Education’s band under the theme, “Wheels of Progress,” the Ministry of Natural Resources’ band under the theme, “Guyana Rising, The Potential of Eco-Friendly Mining,” and the Ministry of Public Service.

Nurse said that he began working on his designs for this year on February 7, and he and his team worked from 08:00 hours to about 23:00 hours.

He went on to note that many days they had to push in extra hours in order to complete the costumes on time.

He told the Buzz, “I have a quote I live by. ‘Do what you love, love what you do and always deliver more than you promised.’”

In this year’s competition, the designer copped first place in the semi-costume category, the king of the band costume (Ministry of Natural Resources) and the queen of the band costume (Ministry of Education). He also won both the male and the female individual costume categories.

Additionally, his designs placed second in the non-commercial float category. Further, Nurse took the first, second and third positions for the full costume in the small band category and placed third in the full costume, medium band category

While the Mashramani season is over, he noted that he has already started to mentally prepare for next year’s events. Nurse noted that it will be hard work but he is ready and excited for the 2024 season following the grand return of Mashramani this year.