Arts
Breaking barriers
Backstage buzz before the show
A man bun almost got in the way of Amesh Wijesekera’s career a few weeks ago. Amesh was showing his graduate collection for the Academy of Design (AOD) at the prestigious Graduate Fashion Week (GFW) in London. The masks that were an integral element of his collection would not fit around the heavily styled buns sported by the models; a nerve wracking few minutes later he had convinced the stylists to take down the offending hairdos. His collection sailed through, winning the Oracle International Catwalk Competition from among many graduates around the world.
He laughs as he shares this with us because Amesh regularly wears his own long hair twisted up into a bun. An upbeat young man from Colombo, he speaks fast, the words tripping and falling over themselves over the phone. Although he has garnered a first-ever win for Sri Lanka at GFW and a promised slot at September’s London Fashion Week, Amesh simply says that he is “humbled,” reluctant to associate himself with the trappings of sudden fame in Colombo circles.
Amesh, 22, is currently based in London, where he was also born although he has lived his entire life in Sri Lanka. He was chosen to showcase his collection at Graduate Fashion Week at the AOD graduate runway in December last year; encouraged by his lecturers, principal Karen Macleod and director Linda Speldewinde, Amesh decided to make the move to London to try his hand at getting work experience. Now that he has won the GFW award, he will showcase his work at the Fashion Scout showcase at London Fashion Week in September and work with celebrated British designer Zandra Rhodes.
Amesh is still trying to process this monumental news. His life in London has not been easy, he says, although he loves it. He first took on a coveted internship at trend consultancy The Future Laboratory, sustaining himself by working nights. Currently, he is completing an internship with the label Edeline Lee. It’s often exhausting and he returns to his room around midnight or even later, wherein he must cook, clean and do all the things that young Sri Lankans living abroad suddenly discover they have to do away from the comforts of home. But Amesh is cheerful, declaring London to be fascinating, filled with all kinds of people and providing an open, accepting space for him to thrive as his own person.
He was inspired by the rigid gender norms enforced by South Asian cultures in particular when it comes to the way we dress in designing his own collection. “I wanted to challenge the idea of menswear by including silhouettes usually worn by women in the collection,” he explains. The result is a striking, even intimidating set of garments that dominated the AOD runway last year. It captured the audience and judges’ fancy at GFW, propelling Amesh towards a win he did not see coming.
Amesh: Currently completing an internship with the label Edeline Lee
From shipping the heavy garments and receiving them two days before deadline to trying to get them through a narrow door in London’s freezing cold when they did finally arrive, Amesh was involved every step of the way. He even managed to convince stylists backstage to let him hang around so he could style the models himself, which proved to be a very smart move when he discovered that half the clothes didn’t fit (“European models are so tall!”) and that the unforeseen ‘man bun’ situation needed to be fixed. Just minutes before he was due to go on, Amesh was fiddling around with stray rubber bands -the ties he had brought for the masks snapped. “I was such a hot mess,” he laughs.
Winning the award on June 9 – the last day of GFW- was a surreal experience for him, especially because he knew he was watched from the audience by designers such as Vivienne Westwood, Julien MacDonald and Christopher Bailey. His parents and lecturer Stuart MacLeod were also in the audience.
For the collection Amesh worked with manufacturing partners including Colourzone Printing in Pannipitiya, Kalaro artisanal knitwear, Thomas Kershaw Lanka and Genelle Footwear. He also mentions Janaka Kumara, AOD and family and friends for their support.
