K2K secures medium band hat-trick

Soyi­ni Grey

Se­nior Re­porter

soyi­[email protected]

“K2K is in­no­v­a­tive!”

This was the word from mul­ti­ple Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion Band of the Year (Medi­um Cat­e­go­ry) win­ner K2K Al­liance & Part­ners, af­ter win­ning their third straight na­tion­al ti­tle yes­ter­day for their pre­sen­ta­tion of Pollen Hous­es.

K2K se­cured 1,299 points, ahead of sec­ond-placed Ke­net­ic Mas, who earned 1,240 points for their pre­sen­ta­tion of You Are the Mas­ter­piece. Om­bre Mas se­cured third place with their por­tray­al Through the Look­ing Glass with 1,048 points.

Speak­ing at their base in Vic­to­ria Gar­dens, Diego Mar­tin, bandown­ers Karen and Kathy Nor­man were tired, hap­py but grate­ful.

Their work is done in-house, and they at­tract a small but ded­i­cat­ed team of mas­quer­aders, who pri­ori­tise cre­ative de­sign over the all-in­clu­sive add-ons avail­able from oth­er bands. It is a for­mu­la that works, most­ly be­cause K2K is fo­cused on ho­n­our­ing the past with eyes firm­ly set on the fu­ture.

The Nor­mans are ac­cus­tomed to win­ning, but col­lect­ing tro­phies isn’t their pur­pose; it is the re­sult of a life in which de­sign nev­er stops.

“Be­cause we do what we do, plan­ning is con­stant and ever go­ing. We have a theme for the next three to five years,” said Kathy Nor­man co-founder and co-cre­ative di­rec­tor.

There was no Car­ni­val in 2021 and 2022 be­cause of COVID-19 but the band has won the prize every year since 2013, ex­cept for 2014 when Just Wee and Friends took the ti­tle. In 2012, they won Cos­tume De­sign in the Medi­um Cat­e­go­ry, win­ning Band of the Day Down­town and at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

The band is known for bring­ing fash­ion in­to mas and their 365-day con­cept for their cos­tumes is root­ed in sus­tain­abil­i­ty. This means they make cos­tumes de­signed to sur­vive the road and which can be worn post-Car­ni­val. Be­cause of this, some of their de­signs don’t make it to the road be­cause the pro­to­type is pur­chased off the man­nequin by an ea­ger mas­quer­ad­er for non-Car­ni­val re­lat­ed use.

And these pro­to­types don’t come cheap, the Nor­mans ex­plained, not­ing one can cost thou­sands of dol­lars. Economies of scale re­duce the cost of the fi­nal cos­tume for the mas­quer­aders. But cre­at­ing a de­sign that is at­trac­tive be­yond Car­ni­val is a val­i­da­tion of their de­sign ethos.

“We’re fo­cused on where fash­ion meets mas, so re­al­ly and tru­ly, it dove­tails in­to our sus­tain­able foot­print. So, a lot of the gar­ments, I should say more the women than the men, are able to wear the clothes over and over again, af­ter the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od. And we call that our 365-day con­cept, so again that is the reusabil­i­ty of the cloth­ing,” said Karen Nor­man.

Per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ences dic­tate which one of the many con­cepts they are work­ing on si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly gets fea­tured. Their 2026 theme, Pollen Hous­es, is about bloom­ing with­out re­gret.

“For in­stance, when a flower starts to grow, it starts to grow from a very, very dark place, but it al­ways lifts its head to the sun,” Karen said.

While it is a mes­sage that they be­lieved could up­lift oth­ers in times of tur­moil, the Nor­mans said it was root­ed in their own need to be re­mind­ed to al­ways look to­wards the light.