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| Mevan:
Making fashions for Europe
One might wonder at my description of his living room. In its middle is a book cupboard filled with books on the history of civilization to model fashion designing and Jathaka Katha to American short stories. An electric sewing machine lies in a corner while bundles of different types of textiles lie close to it. Next, quite a number of men's and womens outer wear jackets and coats in the latest fashions, hung in a row. A drawing board with different and strange tools on it lies in the middle of the room. Next to this table is the computer which he regularly browses to find something about the latest fashions and designs from the internet or scribble something on the screen. Mevan Kaluarachchi is a well known designer in fashion designing circle's in the Netherlands. Some of the latest designs in the European dress market carry his label 'Mevan Kaluarachchige' on their collars. Mevan whom I met while I was covering Rotterdam Film Festival in the Netherlands narrated his journey as a schoolboy to a leading fashion designer in the Netherlands. A student of Mahanama College Colombo, Mevan migrated to Europe ten years ago. It was his passion to become a dress designer. "There was hardly anyplace to study and develop when I left Sri Lanka even as a student I had decided to learn fashion designing from anywhere in the world," says Mevan who has graduated in fashion designing in the Netherlands. Having completed his advanced level in economics, Mevan joined the Commercial Bank and worked there for five years. "This was with the intention of collecting funds and study what I loved to do," said Mevan reminiscing on his journey to become a popular fashion designer. Leaving the bank I went to London and joined 'Vidals Sason' a school which teaches hair dressing. "The subject I studied is called 'styling of people' and later returned to Sri Lanka. In 1999 I joined the popular saloon 'Kess' run by Vasantha de Silva. In 1996 Mevan left for the Netherlands to specialize in his first love, fashion designing. "There were very few universities which offered this subject and they were in the Netherlands and Germany. I joined the Rotterdam Media and Fine Arts University where I graduated in Body Fashioning," said Mevan. Not only graduating, Mevan also became the first to win the prestigious Dutch Fashion Award "Frans Molanaar" at the fashion designing competition in 1999. Following this a popular Dutch dress designer, Alexandar Van Slobbe who identified the talent of this promising Asian invited him to work with him. At this time Van Slobbe was designing for the international market world famous sports wear 'Puma' and was trying to promote it to an upper market not limiting to sportswear. "This gave me an opportunity to join Puma projects," said Mevan. "And Van Slobbe also encouraged me to start my own line of designing and I was able to hold many shows to exhibit my creations in the Netherlands. This gave me an idea to market my designs as 'Mevan Kaluarachchi' Presently 'Mevan Kaluarachchi' is a well-known dress label in the Netherlands and recently his designs started to market in 'Antwerp', the fashion capital in Belgium, Europe. "I want to go away and go international with my products" says Mevan with determination. "Right now I am getting ready to represent European fashion designing competition in summer and in addition to writing a project on promoting unique fashions in Rotterdam on the invitation of Rotterdam Town hall," said Mevan. "Fashion designing in Sri Lanka is at a completely different level. Most of the time rather than promoting our own designs we hire and copy designs from the West and from India. The pathetic situation is that we are living in a warm country and that we need our own designs for our fashions. But unfortunately we never think about this when it comes to fashion" said Mevan in a depressing tone. "We have a lot of potential and we have beautiful people and more than anything we have our own culture and tradition," Mevan added. "What I felt in Sri Lanka is that talent is not recognized and creative people are not taken care of. What I believe is that all creative people must work together. For example writers, architects, painters all must come together in creative work. And the municipalities must get the use of artists and architects when they introduce new buildings to its own localities," Mevan elaborated. "At the same time artistes should be allowed to express themselves freely. This is why artistes leave Sri Lanka or they are forced to leave the country. This is a pathetic situation" lamented Mevan. "Sadly everything is politicized" he added Mevan's interest is not limited to dress. He is also very much close to films too. An ardent lover of cinema Mevan's second dream is to make a film. "The
idea to do a film is longstanding. In fact I have already written
a script and it is about women, rather different side of women.
The germ for my story was there from the time I was in Sri Lanka.
It is a different aspect of Sri Lankan woman who has become the
basis for many stories.". |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
A
ten minute walk from the heart of Rotterdam, in the Netherlands,
lives a busy, creative, imaginative young Sri Lankan. His spacious
living room speaks much about what he does and what he is. 