A passion for Stoosh!

VERNON DAVIDSON, Executive Editor - Publications

Monday, June 04, 2007

THERE'S a subtle elegance to Patrice Harris' attire that you simply cannot ignore whenever you meet her.

Fashion, she admits, has been a passion of hers for many years. Mix that with her eagerness to see other people dressed tastefully and you'll understand why Harris has formed an image consulting firm that offers a full range of services, including personal and business etiquette, verbal and non-verbal communication techniques, image assessment, wardrobe analysis, closet development, and, equally important, shopping.

"That involves going to stores with clients and helping them to choose clothes that complement them," she tells all woman.

Harris says, though, that she is able to reach more people through workshops that she has been staging in the US since forming her company in New York in 2001 after pursuing a Master's degree in Information Technology and Marketing at the University of Salford in Manchester, England the year before.

In an apparent effort to maintain her Jamaican identity, Harris, a former employee of Air Jamaica, named her company Stoosh!, a colloquial expression for people and things that display style and elegance.

The idea, she said, came to her from listening to people complimenting her on how well she put herself together.

Now, after laying the foundation via workshops in the travel industry - Harris is herself a travel agent - she wants to expand the business, staging more seminars here and in the Caribbean to a wider audience.

"I want to tap into the Caribbean," she said. "I want to do seminars in Trinidad and Barbados."

Earlier this year, Harris was in Jamaica where she went to her Alma Mater, Westwood High School, making contacts in an effort to grow her business.

"I hope to conduct workshops for graduates before they go into the working world," she explained. "Quite a number of employers have told me that the problem they encounter with young people fresh out of school is that they have very little knowledge of how to dress for job interviews."

Posture, she explained, is just as important as knowing how to dress. Therefore, Harris is determined to include a grooming school in her business expansion plans. She's already met with Pulse CEO Kingsley Cooper, she said, to explore the possibilities of her involvement in Caribbean Fashion Week, as well as with Miss Jamaica World franchise holder Mickey Haughton-James.

It's early days yet, but Harris also wants to stage, in September, "a Stoosh fashion show" in New York where response to her company, she said, has been "fabulous".

But even as Harris continues to take her bite out of The Big Apple, her mind is never far from Jamaica. In fact, she has already started giving back to her country through the other side of her business - Stoosh Foundation.

"I send clothes, food and whatever other items I can afford to children's homes and to two churches in St Ann where I am actually from," she said. "It's something that I believe I must do."

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A passion for Stoosh!