The Evolution of Pretty Mas

Ask a first-timer to picture Trinidad Carnival and they will probably describe pretty mas: thousands of masqueraders in feathers, beads and colour, dancing behind music trucks on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. Pretty mas is the organised, costumed side of the festival, played in bands made up of sections, each section a variation on the band's theme. But the beaded two-piece is only the latest chapter. For most of the twentieth century, pretty mas meant something closer to open-air theatre, and the bandleaders who built it are some of the most celebrated artists Trinidad has produced.

The historians

In the years after the Second World War, the most prestigious bands were "historical" mas: meticulously researched portrayals of empires, armies and ancient worlds.

The master of the form was Harold Saldenah, born in Belmont in 1925 and known to everyone as "Sally". He designed his first band in 1952, inspired by the film Quo Vadis. In 1955 he presented Imperial Rome 44 BC to 96 AD, with centurions, gladiators and vestal virgins, and won the first of his six Band of the Year titles.¹ His insistence on accuracy famously put his Roman soldiers into short skirts, and he brought in craftsman Ken Morris to make tooled leather and copper breastplates, adding metalwork to the language of mas.¹

Saldenah also developed "section mas" in the 1960s, dividing a large band into themed sections, each with its own flag bearer and title, that came together to tell a bigger story.¹ Bands on the road today are still organised in sections, so every time you choose a section you are using Sally's idea.

George Bailey and the meaning of Africa

George Bailey produced his first band in 1956, out of a mas camp on Buller Street in Woodbrook, when he was just 20. The following year he presented Back to Africa and won Band of the Year.²

It was a turning point. Before Bailey, crowds did not believe an African portrayal could match the grandeur of Rome or Greece. His richly researched costumes showed Africa as regal and magnificent, and he proved the doubters wrong.² Bailey won Band of the Year six times, including Relics of Egypt, Byzantine Glory and Bright Africa, and he won the popular affection of ordinary spectators like few designers before or since. He died of heart failure in 1970.²

The Harts and the rise of fun

Not every bandleader wanted a history lesson. From 1962, Edmond and Lil Hart built bands around abundant colour and simple costuming that people from every part of society could afford and enjoy, winning Band of the Year with presentations such as Playing Cards (1966) and Islands in the Sun (1986).³ "We are masqueraders first, and anything else after," Edmond Hart said. "We look for a simple costume and have fun."³

In the 1980s the Harts were among the first bands to introduce special sections for "body beautifuls". Edmond said they tried to be as conservative as possible, while accepting that masqueraders would modify their costumes as they pleased.³ In hindsight, those sections point straight towards the modern costume. In 1992 three of their children formed Young Harts, later simply Harts, which became one of the most successful bands of the modern era.³

Wayne Berkeley and fantasy mas

Wayne Berkeley, born in 1940, grew up on Clifford Street in Belmont, opposite Saldenah's mas camp. In 1965 he designed his first full band, Fan Fair, for bandleaders Jean Antoni and Geoff Inglefield. It was one of the first major examples of fantasy mas, springing from the designer's imagination rather than a history book, and it helped start the trend that within a few years brought the historical genre to an end.⁴ His bands were known for well-conceived themes, meticulous craftsmanship and a theatrical polish compared to Broadway, built with worksheets and prototypes and with inventive materials such as wrapped crepe paper for feathers and bundled drinking straws for stars.⁴

Berkeley won Band of the Year 11 times, including six in a row from 1989 to 1994.⁴ He also understood the other side of the job: "Producing a successful masquerade band is a combination of both artistry and business."⁵

Peter Minshall, the dramatist

Peter Minshall, born in 1941 in what was then British Guiana and raised in Trinidad, trained at the Central School of Art and Design in London. In 1976 he designed Paradise Lost for bandleader Stephen Lee Heung, with around 1,500 masqueraders, and it won Band of the Year, beginning what Caribbean Beat calls the "Minshall era".⁶

Minshall treated mas as street theatre on an epic scale. In 1983 he began a trilogy with River, whose Washerwoman queen and Mancrab king are still talked about, followed by Callaloo (1984) and The Golden Calabash (1985). His Band of the Year winners include Carnival of the Sea (1979), Jungle Fever (1981), Carnival Is Colour (1987), Hallelujah (1995), Song of the Earth (1996) and Tapestry (1997).⁶ His own description of the work says it best: "I don't design costumes. I provide the means for the human body to express its energy."⁶

Bikinis, beads and the all-inclusive

Through the 1990s and into the new century, "bikini mas" became the dominant look on the road. Writing in 2004, Caribbean Beat described the new costume formula as a few square inches of spandex, festoons of beads, loops of braid and a feather or two, repeated in dozens of colour variations.⁵

At the same time the business model changed. Masqueraders were now paying not only for a costume but for security guards, drinks carts and marketing.⁵ The band most associated with that shift is Tribe. It was founded by Dean Ackin, his wife Monique Nobriega and her sister Lana, when masqueraders persuaded them to turn their popular section of the band Poison into a standalone band. SocaNews credits Tribe with introducing the all-inclusive concept to mas, as well as the mobile bar.⁷ By 2018 the Tribe group ran six bands: Tribe, Bliss, The Lost Tribe, Pure, Harts and Rogue.⁷

For masqueraders, the all-inclusive model means one price that covers costume, food, drinks, security and facilities on the road. For many visitors it is the easiest way to play mas for the first time.

Art or commerce?

Not everyone celebrated the change. The same Caribbean Beat feature argued that market forces had tipped the balance away from artistry towards profit margins and assembly-line production, and warned of a gradual "re-segregation of the mas, along strictly economic lines", with ropes and security keeping non-paying revellers out.⁵

Defenders of modern mas point out that the big bands put thousands of people on the road, sustain a year-round costume industry and make Carnival accessible to visitors who could never build a costume themselves. Critics answer that a band of identical bikinis tells no story. The debate is far from settled, and you will hear it argued in rum shops, on talk radio and on social media every Ash Wednesday.

Band of the Year today

The competition that Saldenah, Bailey, Berkeley and Minshall fought over still runs today. The National Carnival Commission names its Band of the Year, and separate committees judge bands at points uptown and downtown.

At Carnival 2026, The Lost Tribe swept the major titles with Island Circus, taking the NCC's Large Band of the Year and overall Band of the Year, its fifth Large Band crown and fourth in a row.^{8 9} Trinidad All Stars, portraying Sailors Ashore in Japan, placed second in the Uptown Carnival Improvement Committee's large band judging, just two points behind.⁹ In other words, the modern all-inclusive and the old sailor tradition finished almost side by side, which is a neat summary of pretty mas in the twenty-first century.