You may see her on Instagram jet-setting from Thailand to Los Angeles and be misled that the life of a creative entrepreneur is always glamorous and rosy. I assure you that this is not the case. Their lives are often characterized by sleepless nights, early mornings, endless phone calls and responding to more emails than Brian Lara has ever made runs. It cannot be overstated, the level of painstaking discipline it takes to be a creative entrepreneur; but when you have impeccable taste the way Shivonne Subero does, it makes the work a little bit more manageable.
Shivonne is a fashion and lifestyle entrepreneur from Trinidad & Tobago who is the C.E.O and Creative Director of Shivonne Subero Label aka SS Label and C.E.O of Loving Me Distribution Ltd (‘LoVinMe Clothing’ and ‘LoVinMe Swim’). Shivonne oozes confidence and is supremely secure about the value that she adds in any directorial and leadership capacity. The breadth and scope of her confidence does not only stem from the allure of her breathtaking Trinidadian beauty, but also from her professional depth. Shivonne graduated from the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago with an Associates Degree in Applied Science and Public Relations/Journalism.
Many aspiring creative entrepreneurs often show disdain for the 9-5 employment structure, but Shivonne used this model to gain noteworthy experience before she started her own companies. She has extensive marketing and administrative experience from working in corporate Trinidad and boasts an impressive track record of driving revenue gains and brand awareness through social media for the companies she has worked for. Now she seeks to apply all she has learnt to her own brands, and we caught up with the spirited entrepreneur to find out her blueprint for becoming one of the most influential creatives in Trinidad.
CARIB VOXX: When did SS Label start and what was the inspiration behind it?
Subero: “SS Label started exactly one year ago. Honestly, my first brand, LoVinMe, was like SS Label – but when I realized how much more money I would need to create my own clothes I put that dream aside for lil’ bit. Instead of making and designing my own clothes initially, I just continued doing what I grew up doing. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, so my Dad , Aunt and Step-Mom all sold imported clothes and shoes. Two year after LoVinMe, I started SS Label because I had built up enough capital to start my own label and brand with clothes I design . The inspiration behind SS Label is rooted in customization. My body type is a small waist, bigger bust and thin legs. I knew that I wasn’t the only one having issues with clothes fitting me properly. I definitely wanted women to wear something that was tailored for their body type – at least give them that option! I also wanted to showcase all the beautiful colors, with beautiful frills that depict the Latina in me.”
CARIB VOXX: Tell us about LoVinMe Clothing & LoVinMe Swim from inception. How would you respond to a critic who may say your brand is subtly promoting narcissism?
Subero: “LoVinMe Clothing started when I was fired from my corporate job. I recall in my final year of school, I fell in love with marketing and my teacher said that digital marketing was going to be the future of this industry. She also always said that anything could be marketed, and she used plums as an example. When I lost my job, I tried to get into marketing with so many companies and got rejected so many times. My background is in administration and accounting, so no one was going to hire me for marketing. So then, I just decided to start marketing my own product because my teacher said I could market anything. I called my Aunt, who was also an entrepreneur, to help get the contacts needed to import the products from L.A. and I used capital from that to start LoVinMe Swim (which is now made locally but was previously imported). It really just came from my love of marketing. To the critics I would say, stay in your own lane and mind your own business because loving yourself is just not something everyone would understand.”
CARIB VOXX: Name another Caribbean woman whose entrepreneurial spirit you seek to emulate with these brands.
Subero: “Karrian Hepburn Malcom who is the Vice President of Marketing & Sales at the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation, Jenna Camacho who is a Hormone Specialist and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, and Samantha De Boehmler Conyers who is a “ShEO” of Exco TT.”
CARIB VOXX: From your past experience in corporate Trinidad, do you think Caribbean business leaders and business owners are fully exploiting social media as a marketing tool, or are they still behind the times?
Subero: “From my past experiences in corporate Trinidad, I do not think business owners are exploiting digital marketing fully. Definitely not! I’m seeing some really trying to take the social media aspect of digital marketing more seriously, but most are still falling asleep with it.”
CARIB VOXX: Outside of your professional depth and strong educational background, how did you develop such a notable sense of confidence and surety in all your pursuits?
Subero: “My confidence comes from losing the person who was closest to me in my life at the tender age of 14. I consider myself very lucky for everything else I had. I thought that the worst thing that can happen to me has already happened, therefore nothing else can be taken that seriously; which leads to this confident attitude of thinking, “You can’t do much to me because I’ve suffered hell on earth already.” I always tell myself everything after this pain is amazing. Everything else is a blessing, a miracle and to be taken with love. I experienced other changing points in my life that brought me to self-awareness and self–actualization, so I just continued to nurture that inner resilience that life gave me as a teenager. I feed that now by reading, by studying my intuition and learning to trust my inner voice – that voice that they tell you to stop listening to. So, listening to myself and my intuition definitely helps a lot with my confidence. I also must acknowledge that understanding the two levels of creation has helped my confidence as well. There is thought and the physical. I became obsessed with seeing that process come to pass. Letting go of perfectionism helps confidence as well. The absolute most important thing, though, is to live in the present – live in the now. We suffer because our mind is either in the past or the future when we should learn to live in the now.”
