Priyanka embarks on boss lady journey
PRIYANKA SINGH has always wanted to participate in Fiji Fashion Week, an event she has always been familiar with as a professional hair and make-up artist. But confidence was her biggest challenge. Read More
LICE MOVONO
PRIYANKA SINGH has always wanted to participate in Fiji Fashion Week, an event she has always been familiar with as a professional hair and make-up artist. But confidence was her biggest challenge. And she put the lack of it down to the fact that she did not have enough experience.
Instead of resting on her haunches, Singh decided it was necessary to get some training and experience if she was to pursue her fashion design goals. With a bit of tenacity and planning, she got herself into the Australia Pacific Training Coalition (APTC), an institution which is responsible for the upgrade in technical skills among some of the country’s best designers.
“I wanted to go through proper education in fashion before I stepped into the industry and I finally got time and opportunities to study at APTC,” she said.
Now she and a handful of classmates from the institution will form most of the line-up at this weekend’s opening of Fiji Fashion Week, which is “The NextGeneration Show”. Her inspiration are the women customers who turn up at her Suva hair and make-up shop to get styled for events. Many of the customers she serves are women who walk in after a tough workday to get ready for an evening or weekend event that they have to juggle on top of their career, family and studies – not always in that order.
Watching them move from day to evening and then doing it all while looking a certain way was “boss like”, Singh said. However it also presented her with the belief that these women led a lifestyle that required a certain style of clothing to match.
“I will be doing semi-formal and formal outfits, primarily for women. I am almost done completing my collection which is inspired by independent women.”
Working with neutral colours in an attempt to appeal to a wide cross-section of Fijian women, Singh’s collection is called “Boss Women” and her goal is to make sure her clients feel good and comfortable in them and that they are wearable.
“I’ve always been inspired by amazing female artists like Beyonce, Rihanna and other great women like them.”
Asides from hair and make-up work, Singh is a fitness model, a niche market of modelling she went into after success at local body building competitions. She was Miss Fiji at the 2018 Fiji body building competition. After watching a body building show where there was not much female participation, the then 21-yearold joined the competition and won gold in the women’s bikini category on her first try.
“As a hair and make-up artist and then being a fitness model, stepping into making fashion clothing is a package deal for me. It’s almost like a one-stop shop for me. We do need to focus on looking presentable wherever we go because nowadays people do judge you on your presentation.”
Challenged by the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic to be creative,
Singh’s foray into fashion has not been a walk in the park.
“There were quite a lot of challenges, due to my busy schedule, as we have classes every day for eight hours and then managing my time for the collection was quite hard; way higher than I thought, actually. But my collection is almost ready and I am excited to showcase it at Fiji Fashion Week.”
I will be doing semiformal and formal outfits primarily for women. I am almost done completing my collection which is inspired by independent women – Priyanka Singh
Originally Published in the fijitimes on November 13 2020
