With its dancers, devils and elaborate handmade costumes, mas – short for masquerade – is carnival’s oldest tradition. We meet the women keeping it alive

In a workroom in the Yaa Centre in west London, surrounded by bolts of fabric and sewing machines, Allyson Williams is reminiscing about her first mas camp. For the uninitiated, mas camps are where carnival bands gather to make their costumes by hand. Now 72, the former midwife – she was awarded an MBE for her services in 2002 – smiles broadly at the memory. “It was wonderful. I thought, oh my God! This is like home.”

For the Williamses, mas is a family business. It started with Allyson’s husband, Vernon, who came to London in 1956. As a Trinidadian, like Allyson, carnival was in his blood. After meeting his wife-to-be in 1975, Vernon wasted no time in introducing her to Notting Hill Carnival, which he had co-founded in 1966.

While the average reveller might not be familiar with mas, it is integral to the carnival’s history. Short for masquerade, the idea of playing mas as part of a carnival band originated in Trinidad, which provided the general model for Notting Hill. (These days it has also been influenced by the traditions of the Brazilian diaspora). A historic practice that traces its roots back to slavery, you can’t play mas without understanding the bloodied past of the Caribbean.

Timeline History of the Notting Hill carnival Show Hide Taking place in 1958, shortly after the race riots in London, Trinidadian human rights activist Claudia Jones put on an indoor ‘Caribbean carnival’ at St Pancras town hall. It is broadcast by the BBC. The Notting Hill Children’s Neighbourhood festival is organised by Rhaune Laslett and includes steel bands. Laslett organises the first outdoor festival to take place in the streets of Notting Hill - the Notting Hill Fayre. The Russ Henderon Steel Band play at the event and lead an impromptu procession through the streets. Leslie Palmer includes static sound systems in the event for the first time. By 1976, attendances at the carnival reach more than half a million people. The UK National Panorama steelband competition is held for the first time. It usually takes place the day before carnival. Wilf Walker organises the first live stages at the carnival. Carnival is streamed live on the web for the first time with its own offical TV channel in a deal struck with ITV Local London. Carnival goes ahead weeks after riots in London following the death of Mark Duggan, but with a 7pm curfew. Carnival holds a minute's silence to remember the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

“One of the earliest forms of mas in Trinidad was the burning of the canes,” explains University of Oregon anthropology professor Philip W Scher. “Whites would dress as slaves and parade through the streets doing a mock version of something that happened with regularity during slavery – when the sugar cane caught on fire, and they’d have to march the slaves out to the fields in the night to put it out.” After slavery ended, the practice was reinterpreted by the freed African people, and incorporated into their carnival tradition.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Upholding tradition … costume designer Allyson Williams. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

Mas is a form of street theatre, replete with distinct characters, all with their own energetic traditions. There are Moko Jumbies, who walk down Port of Spain’s Frederick Street on stilts, collecting money from the people watching on balconies. There are Blue Devils, hailing from the village of Paramin, who paint their skin blue and extort money from the crowd. (Woe betide anyone who is short of change – they are famously terrifying.) The Midnight Robbers hold passersby up at fake gunpoint and deliver long, improvised speeches. And the rambunctious Pissenlit – meaning wet the bed – run around in rags soaked in urine or menstrual blood.

All this revelry has a purpose. “Mas is a mentality, a way of understanding who we are and where we stand,” says Trinidadian scholar Kevin Adonis Browne, author of High Mas: Carnival and the Poetics of Caribbean Culture. Because mas came out of slavery, a transgressive critique of white imperialism is inherent in the performance. “During the 19th century, the planter class had their balls,” Browne explains. “They’d exclude slaves or, later on, free blacks or indentured servants. Mas was a mirror image of the masquerades these people had seen the bourgeois performing, but also a critical reflection. It’s a paradoxical engagement with race, class, and politics, and a push-pull embrace and rejection of official culture, western sensibilities, or whiteness.”

Carnival doesn’t start when the first floats line the road. Preparations begin months earlier, at mas camps. “It’s a social space,” says Browne. “It’s where you reinforce the ideologies of mas and carnival. It’s where history is shared, where ideas are passed down.”

Mas camps were imported to the UK in the 1960s. Before her first carnival, Allyson spent weeks making papier-mache hats. “It was like that traditional mas camp requirement,” she says with a chuckle. “If you went to a mas camp, you ended up working! Someone always put something in your hand that you had to do.”

For Melissa Simon-Hartman, being part of a mas camp changed her life. Assisting Meilin Sancho of the Elimu Carnival Band led to a career as a costume designer. “I used to follow Sancho around everywhere,” Simon-Hartman says in her kitchen in Bedford. “I wanted to glitter and decorate things for her. I was totally enamoured with her.”

At her first Notting Hill, Simon-Hartman – then seven – played a Jab Molassie, one of the oldest carnival characters. Usually smeared with tar, mud, grease, or coloured paint (the Blue Devils are a variant), the Jab Molassies are devils that will drag you to hell. “It was heavenly,” she says. “I was depressed when it was over. I cried for a very long time after carnival.” (She wouldn’t be alone – in Trinidad, “carnival tabanca” refers to the heartache revellers feel when carnival is over.)

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Melissa Simon-Hartman with her Sea Flower costume, made of belly-dancing costume fabric. Photograph: John Robertson/The Guardian

She leads me past an enormous Sea Flower costume that takes up most of the hallway. “The actual fabric is belly-dancing material,” Simon-Hartman says, fingering the pink and purple skirt. It is gossamer-thin and wired out from a waistband to resemble the petals of a brilliant tropical flower.

In her studio, her assistants Raveena Flora and Rosemary Barrett, are busy at work. Sewing machines rattle, glue guns lie around, and mannequins weighted in beads and pearls stare back at me. This year, Simon-Hartman is producing 28 costumes for four bands, including Elimu – and she’s doing things differently. “Look,” she says with a laugh, throwing her hands up. “I have no issues with feathers – I don’t want anyone coming after me – but I like to experiment with texture. So if someone wants feathers, I look for something I can replicate a feather with, but in an alternate material.” She laser-cut packaging material to resemble feathers, so another band won’t turn up wearing the same plumage.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Simon-Hartman’s assistant Raveena Flora working on the Dreams of Oshun costume. Photograph: John Robertson/The Guardian

As a girl in Trinidad, one of Allyson Williams’s earliest memories is of watching her father shake out a voluminous, Elizabethan-themed costume. “He was a courtier, or something like that,” she says, her eyes brightening. “He had this elaborate costume with huge sleeves, and panels, and puffy pants in all these beautiful colours. I’d reach out to touch them, and think, if I touch this, will it rub off, or will it shine more?”

Her husband Vernon founded Genesis, now one of Notting Hill’s most long-standing bands, in 1980, and the Williams family has become a venerable carnival institution: a dynasty of floats and foam, all set to the pounding of soca drums. “I was lucky that my husband was a fellow Trinidadian, so we could show them what carnival was all about,” says Allyson. “I am so proud that my children took to it and embraced it.”

Vernon died in 2002, and carnival was difficult that year. “ I cried all the time,” says Allyson. To complicate matters, Vernon had arranged for Genesis to perform as part of the Queen’s golden jubilee celebrations. “It was all arranged,” Allyson recalls. “They called us to ask, are you doing this? He died two weeks before the jubilee. Everyone said, ‘Let’s do it as a tribute to him.’” The band wore T-shirts with Vernon’s face on them, and paraded down the Mall. I put it to Allyson that the story of her relationship with Vernon is also the story of Notting Hill Carnival. “It was lovely – wonderful,” she says. “I remember everything about him with such fondness, including the carnival.”

After his death, their daughter Symone Williams-Nelson took over as band leader, with Allyson heavily involved in coordinating and producing the costumes. This year the band’s theme is Afro spice: Symone designed a print or it that is based on the motif of the Luba tribe from central Africa.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London with members of the carnival mas band Genesis. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Allyson hopes to inspire a new breed of mas costume designers to reconnect with carnival’s rich history. But the historic traditions of mas are being replaced with so-called pretty mas, which is more popular today and has extravagantly beautiful costumes – bright colours, sequins, and beading – but they don’t represent characters or themes. “A lot of bands in recent years have gone for feathers and bikinis and beads,” Allyson says with a sigh. “They felt that the interpretation of historical themes was probably a bit heavy. But I’m all feathered out at the moment.”

As pretty mas comes to dominate, mas camps are counted out. “That has died,” says Simon-Hartman, who is a freelance costume designer. “There’s not many bands left that have mas camps you can visit.” Unless there’s a sudden about-turn, mas camps may be a thing of the past. Browne warns: “The old performers are dying. Mas as performance culture is under threat of erasure.”

For now, Allyson and Simon-Hartman will keep the spirit and traditions of carnival where they belong: on the road. Simon-Hartman doesn’t take this privilege for granted. After she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2001, she feared she’d never design costumes again. But in 2015, she found a medication that allowed her to return to work – which she did with a flourish, making 40 costumes for Elimu that year. After other bands saw her elaborate handiwork, the orders started coming in.

Being able to keep doing what Simon-Hartman loves best – making phantasmagorical costumes that horrify and entrance in equal measure – is a privilege. “To me, mas means culture, heritage, street theatre,” she says. “That’s the way I like to look at it. It’s the opportunity to express yourself. It represents freedom.”

Play Video 8:59 A love letter to Notting Hill carnival: 'It keeps our culture alive’ – video

• Notting Hill carnival runs from 24-26 August in London.

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