Trinidad Carnival habitués from The Rock are now settled in the twin-island republic for the annual celebration. c ome Tuesday, the streets of Port of Spain will be blanketed with muscular frames and lithe bodies of revellers who have spent months in the gym.

On February 21, the Kings and Queens preliminary competition took place at Queen’s Park Savannah. Among the top 10 queens was Shynel Brizan of the moko jumbie (stilt walkers) band Moko Somõkõw. Brizan’s costume — “Mariella, Shadow of Consciousness” — was created by British mas man Alan Vaughan.

Vaughan, who hails from Newcastle in north-east England, has been travelling to Trinidad and Tobago for over 25 years to play mas and in 2015 became the first British designer in history to win the Carnival Queen competition. His designs for Moko Somõkõw are heavily influenced by the Caribbean and Africa.

The theme for Moko Sõmõko’s 2019 costumes, “Palace of the Peacock”, was inspired by the novel of the same name by the late Guyanese writer Wilson Harris. Harris’s Palace of the Peacock tells the story of runaway slave Mariella who is being hunted by a group of ethnically diverse men led by a second-generation colonialist. To find Mariella the men have to traverse the rough waters of a river — the same river that claimed their lives when they previously crossed it. The novel lies at the intersection of magical realism and historiographic metafiction.

Over 70 masqueraders crossed the Grand Stand stage for the preliminary competition. In addition to “Mariella, Shadow of Consciousness”, Vaughan entered two other costumes — “The Sun Rises and Overwhelms the Sinnerman”, portrayed by Vaughan, and “A Peacock Becomes the Windows of the Universe”, portrayed by Tekel Syl­van. The latter made it into the top 10 of the Kings’ prelims.

Style Observer (SO) highlights Vaughan’s “Palace of the Peacock” costumes.