Zameer “Ronnie” Baksh, a popular clothes shop owner, has died. He was 51.

A self-made businessman whose shop, The Edge, has been open for more than 25 years, Mr Baksh helped to run fashion shows and Bermuda Heroes Weekend celebrations.

Known as Ronnie, he was originally from Trinidad & Tobago but moved to Bermuda as a youngster in the 1970s.

He married Giselle Winchell and had two daughters, Raven and Dacotah.

His daughters called him compassionate, selfless, “an incredible person and an even more incredible father”, who taught optimism and humour.

A joint statement said their father “helped to shape us into women who are always seeking to learn, to laugh and to be open-minded”.

They added: “In our upbringing, fairness and balance were always key. He encouraged us to be humble, kind and well-versed in life.

“The women that we are today is a true reflection of the man that he was.”

They said their father would “live on in us” from “his smile and his eyes, to his style and taste in music and films”.

His daughters added Mr Baksh’s death at the weekend “left a gaping hole in our hearts”.

They said: “The love that one man can exude has enough force to make a community stand still.

“We are extraordinarily proud to call him our daddy. We will always love him.”

Robert Horton, acting principal at the Berkeley Institute when Mr Baksh arrived in 1978, said he was “enormously popular and admired by his peers and teachers”.

Mr Horton added: “Zameer, as I knew him, was a model student and a joy to teach.”

He said: “He was always neat as a pin and impeccably turned out, so it was no surprise when he opened a clothing boutique.”

Mr Horton added: “We are all proud to salute him as a Berkeleyite par excellence. People are reeling in shock.”

Dwayne Caines, press officer for the Bermuda Police Service, said that he and his brothers got to know Mr Baksh “simply as lovers of fashion”.

Mr Caines added: “What I received in return was much more valuable — friendship, counsel, compassion, jokes but most of all love.”

He said: “If you were a customer, Ronnie had the uncanny ability to make you feel like you were the most important person in the world.”

Mr Caines said that Mr Baksh had told him that money meant little to him compared with the happiness of the people around him.

He added Mr Baksh wanted his store to run without him so that he could “travel the world and help needy people”.

Damian Brewster, the president of the West Indian Association of Bermuda, said Mr Baksh “embraced his roots from Trinidad”.

He said: “He was very generous and very much minded about the association’s success.

“At Ronnie’s store, he welcomed tickets for any of our events, and his store was often the main venue.”

Mr Brewster said Mr Baksh’s mother, Patsy Procter, was “loved dearly” as a longstanding member of the association, and the group took advantage of his flair for co-ordinating events.

Gavin Smith, executive director of the Chewstick Foundation, said Mr Baksh’s death was “heartbreaking”.

He added Mr Baksh was one of Chewstick’s “most longstanding supporters and participants” and his musician daughter Raven got her artistic start there.

Mr Smith said: “He was incredibly big hearted and he would help us with anything. Most people knew him for fashion but he was passionate about working with his hands in whatever needed to be done.”

Mr Smith said: “He really figured out the local balancing act of being an entrepreneur in a small market. In most of my performances, if I looked good it was because I’d go and check Ronnie and he would hook me up with something special and make me look like a million bucks.”

• To read Raven and Dacotah’s tribute to their father, click on the PDF under “Related Media”.