“I’d like my brand to be the Gucci of Australia”

The words ‘raise the bar’ keep cropping up. For this petite Sri Lankan, Tokyo, London, Paris, have all been milestones on a path she’s drawn as directionally as any of her cutting edge designs.

“I’d like my brand to be the Gucci of Australia,” she says and as ambitious as the words may sound, coming from Dhini Pararajasingham, they signal clear intent. Winning increasing respect and recognition in Australia for her structured and impeccably tailored creations, Dhini’s talent goes hand in glove with a single-minded determination to succeed in her adopted country.

Dhini Pararajasingham

In town briefly last month, Dhini talked to the Sunday Times, about the career not many would have foreseen for little Annundhini Pararajasingham, growing up in a conventional Bambalapitiya neighbourhood, going to school at Ladies’ College. But after the ’83 upheavals, the family moved, first to Kodaikanal in India and then to California, returning to Sri Lanka for a while, before finally settling in Melbourne. Such shifts during her teenage years could have been daunting, but for Dhini and her twin Annushini, by her own admission, rebellious kids, there was strength in sisterhood. “I was lucky because I had a twin sister and could share those difficult first days at new schools with her. We learned to adapt,” she says.

They soon felt at home in Australia, but pursuing her artistic inclination didn’t come easy. Dhini’s father being a lawyer was very clear that the girls should have a sound qualification. “I had always loved drawing and sewing but my parents, being Sri Lankan didn’t feel that was a suitable career,” Dhini recalls. She chose a double degree, business and marketing and ‘did pretty ok’ but her heart was not in it, a feeling that grew stronger after graduation when she took up her first job in marketing.

Being Dhini, she decided to do something about it - to ‘go back to doing something creative’ and support herself. She found a job teaching English in Japan and used the time and place to make a start in fashion. It was an inspired choice. “In Japan, the opportunities are amazing. It is one of the most directional countries in fashion design,” she says. On her days off she studied fashion part-time at the Yokohama Fashion Design School for two years. “I virtually had private classes,” she laughs, for the owner of the school realising she was the only student who had to be taught in English devoted a lot of attention to her.

She discovered too that the Japanese aesthetic in fashion design was very different to the West. “They’re very much more experimental. Their culture is to push boundaries,” she says, an influence that has stayed with her work.

By then, Dhini had her designs on RMIT (the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) which she says had the best fashion course in the whole of Australia. There is stiff competition to enter, some 3000 applicants for 300 places. So she flew from Japan to meet the RMIT board and make a case for her entry. “You could call it a campaign,” she says, “for you needed to have an impressive portfolio, which I was able to put together with help from my Japanese teacher.”

So it was that at the age of 25, Dhini entered RMIT, the oldest student in her batch and found herself the least experienced, when it came to fundamentals like machine sewing. “It was the most challenging course,” she says, recalling how there was no time to do anything else but study -“no time to go out, hang out with friends”. But after struggling through her first year, she caught up and was soon making a mark. On graduation day, it was a proud moment when Dhini’s name was announced as the most promising student that year. “I looked at my Dad and saw his face; it was at that moment that he believed that I was serious about this and he was very proud of me,” she says.

While the stage was set for Dhini to launch her career, she was convinced she needed to learn more. She had always looked up to London, “where the avant-garde designers are,” so she got herself a two-year visa and wrote to all her favourite designers looking for an opening. Two days later, one of them - a small but cutting edge firm Boudicca asked her to join.

She arrived just in time for London Fashion Week and was immediately catapulted into the frenetic preparations, working 14 hour days. “I started off on a cutting table, cutting fabric for the garments that were going to be shown on the runway. I felt so energised and privileged to have been chosen to work there.” After the first week she found herself in the thick of the action as Backstage Manager. “I knew this was what I wanted to do for life,” she says.

A year later, Dhini by then production assistant, liasing with all the suppliers, had learnt how the entire production process in London worked, from quality control to deliveries into stores.

By then she was also getting offers from designers like Alexander McQueen, but was equally impatient to launch out on her own. Her parents were visiting at the time and she persuaded them to back her with the capital she needed. Her first collection was designed in London and she managed to get it into the London Fashion Week as a private show, done on appointment. It was a solo effort, working seven days a week for three months.

“I looked like hell at the end, I’d lost so much weight,” she smiles at the recollection. This then in 2005 was the big stage for her. “It was very expensive, hiring 10-15 models, production team, lighting, all of it. I had a press agent and some big buyers like Harvey Nicholls, Selfridges and a Japanese department store called Beams, all came.” Her second collection showcased in Paris at a trade show called Rendezvous. “It was not a runway show, that’s for the established designers, the emerging ones have to show in trade events,” Dhini explains. She got her first order from Beams and with that confidence boost came the realization that “this wasn’t a hobby anymore.”

Back in Melbourne in 2006, she “started from scratch.” Researching the market, she worked on her next collection, sending out her info to the press. The lack of response was, she confesses, disappointing, that too after London and Paris. In September that year, she got approval to present her first runway show at the Australian Fashion Week and was quite taken aback to find the press swarming in to meet her. “I found out later that they had been talking about me and waiting to see my work.” That collection was one of the stand-outs of the week and Dhini’s star, it seems, was ascending.

“In the next day’s papers, they all covered me. After doing the collection, like a hermit, it was incredible to receive overnight such a lot of publicity.” The magazines came too and Dhini had orders from six top stores across Australia.

Now with her own staff and design studio, Dhini supplies 15 leading stores being stocked alongside the likes of Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood. “It’s still quite small, but given the current climate, it’s safer to be small and gradually grow,” she says pragmatically.

She has no illusions about the challenges ahead. “It’s constantly about proving yourself,” she says. “One brilliant collection is not enough. You have to produce something new every season. Even though you may do a great collection, production is another challenge. In the high-end market, the customer is extremely fussy.”

Still doing the last quality check, she is ever the perfectionist. “I’m never fully happy with my work but I see that as a good thing for I continually want to improve.”

Hailed by leading Australian fashion magazines, as edgy and exciting, most recently, her work was showcased in G’day UK along with six top Aussie designers.

And a source of much satisfaction too is that her parents are proudest of her success. “My dad’s my biggest fan,” Dhini smiles. And even if life is altogether too hectic, she is not complaining. “The best part is when my customers and the press get totally excited and inspired by my work.”