Shivaruby takes the reins

“I wanted to do tertiary studies in government and politics. I had applied to and got into the University of Nottingham to pursue American studies and history,” shared the Jamaican-Sri Lankan, who has been living in the United Kingdom for the last nine years after relocating from Waterford, St Catherine. “I planned to go into the civil service here in London, potentially the Ministry of Defence or Justice and work my way up to becoming a policy adviser. That was the original trajectory.”

But after being scouted twice by model agents, on two separate occasions in Oxford Circle and Camberwell, respectively, the then-16-year-old beauty, though tentative, was quietly activated by the repeated ardent interest.

Premkanthan’s cosmetologist mother, however, was not the least bit moved by those overtures made by the fashion industry. “She was the typical immigrant Jamaican mom and very protective,” the model star told The Sunday Gleaner on a Zoom call. “She wanted me to go to university.”

Unbeknownst to the reluctant parent, Premkanthan had kept the business card of that second agent who had approached her on an otherwise ordinary errand run. “It was during winter when mom sent me out to put money on the gas card. I honestly felt like I had looked shabby and rough in this purple hoodie,” reminisced the mixed-race stunner who had moved to The Rock when she was two and lived with her late grandmother before returning to England at 13.

“[The] lady came up to me and was, like, ‘You are so beautiful. Can I take a picture of you?’ and I was, like, ‘No’ because I lived in a rough area of London, and you can’t just come up to people and say that. She introduced herself, and we spoke, and I let her take a picture, and I went home but didn’t tell my mom. She had said no to the whole idea [when] I had been scouted before while I was out with her.”

By fortuitous circumstance, the teenager would discover that the agent’s agency, Storm Models, was just down the road from Chelsea Academy when she went to register to do her A Level subjects only a few months later.

“I was thinking, why not, so I went in behind my mom’s back, and they took pictures. I learnt that they were the agency that scouted supermodels Kate Moss and Cara Delevigne. I went to my mom and told her I was scouted again, and she was, like, ‘No, finish school’, and we got into it. My mom and I didn’t see eye to eye because growing up, she didn’t raise me. I moved out a little bit earlier than expected, and then I went back to the agency to tell them what was going on. My dad signed the papers, and they gave me a contract on the spot,” she shared.

In between working jobs at a Marriott Hotel and a Moroccan vegan restaurant as a server and then as a shelf-stacker at Tesco, Premkanthan bided her time for her fashion break.

It materialised with her exclusive debut for British heritage brand Burberry’s Spring-Summer 2021 collection at London Fashion Week at the height of the pandemic. After, there was no looking back.

“It went up from there,” the five feet, ten inches tall model shared.

Three fashion seasons later, she was blazing catwalks beyond London. “I went to Milan, and I made it into Versace. Then I went to Paris and closed Acne that season,” she recalled of her multibooked runway turns that also included Italian houses Del Core, MSGM, and Missoni. Her immersion into the ever-evolving fashion world provided a learning curve in self-empowerment that came over time. “I was super shy. I would walk into a room and couldn’t even enunciate. I was a young girl from Jamaica who didn’t know anything about fashion, walking into these big rooms with people, and they are telling you [to] walk. Learning to be a model and showing up as myself, it was hard.”

Now a seasoned veteran, she is grateful for how her personality has blossomed. “The thing about modelling that keeps me interested is definitely how fast things can change. The up and down gets you addicted sometimes. But I feel it is more positive than negative. The opportunities I get to meet people, the places I am positioned in, it’s just this intrigue and this constant growth into the person I have become. I am now very outspoken and loud. Maybe that was who I always was, but the environment I have been put into bred my true self.”

The refreshingly unpretentious Premkanthan’s red-hot career is undeniable.

There are global advertising campaigns for Givenchy, Mulberry, Calvin Klein, and Michael Kors. Add editorials for glossies W, Re-Edition, and multiple international editions of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Count, too, an exhaustive roster of catwalk appearances across the fashion capitals for the crème de la crème of the biz: Jacquemus, Bottega Veneta, Stella McCartney, Hermes, and Dior. She went viral last year, generating a flood of memes, when she debuted a gorgeous neon green sculpted gown for Indian couturier Gaurav Gupta’s Fall 2023 haute couture collection in Paris. Music superstar Beyoncé then copped the look to be included among her much-discussed wardrobe pieces for her Renaissance world tour last year.

Although she has attained dizzying success, the in-demand face conceded that while, at first blush, she had given herself a time-stamp of five years to be in the industry, she has revisited this.

“I was more academically inclined before modelling, and being here has opened up the horizons. It has given me access to things I never thought possible,” she revealed to The Sunday Gleaner.

“Even the money we make .... it’s changed my life and my family’s life, and how often I can afford to go home. I am grateful for the life it has given me .... How long do I see myself being a model? It’s a very relative feeling where every day you want to quit, but then there’s that one thing that keeps you there. For me, I know what my purpose is here. Coming in, it was to create a good life for myself, and I have done that. I have goals of things I want to do, but I guess this whole new world that has opened up to me, and me being a straight and narrow girl, that’s broken down that way of living for me, and I want to see how far I can take it.”

The high-fashion model, who left for England after her first-form year at The Queen’s School, makes it a point of duty to return home frequently.

“I realised my parents didn’t go home much, so I make it a priority to go home as much as possible, given it’s a privilege for me. I was in Jamaica in August and December last year and was just there in March.”

Coming from humble beginnings on the island, she now seizes every travel opportunity back to the 876 to explore places she is unfamiliar with.

“When people in England tell me about Jamaica and how lucky I am to be from there, sometimes I don’t even know the places they are naming.

Whenever I go home now I tell my family, find places, and we are going ... because nuff a wi nuh get to know Jamaica the way we suppose to because we don’t have the money, but people a farin know much more places than Jamaican people. The last time mi go, I went to Lime Cay for the first time and to Reach Falls in Portland, and also Salt River, which is a favourite in my family because a lot of them are from Clarendon.”

As for her Asian roots, Premkanthan said she is invested in connecting with her father’s family.

“I am half Sri Lankan, and up until last year, I didn’t know what to make sense of being Sri Lankan was. In Jamaica, my nickname was Indi. I didn’t grow up with my father, so I didn’t know much about the country,” she said of her dad, who lives in England, where he works as a cab driver. “The first time I went to Sri Lanka was in March 2023 for a job for British Vogue. I went back in August this year because once I had seen it, I found it [to be] a stunning, beautiful country. I felt really connected to it. I did a solo trip around the country for three weeks, and obviously, I had to go see my family for a few days. I did seven cities and got a driver everywhere I went. My dad’s mom and dad are still alive. I am not very acquainted with them, but I try to be as much as possible because I didn’t grow up with them. It’s hard to connect sometimes because I don’t speak the language. My ethnic group is Tamils. We are from up north in Jaffna. My grandparents have five kids. All my aunties are married, so I have lots of cousins. I am still learning more and definitely want to get more acquainted with them as I get older.”

In her downtime, the voracious reader is branching out into music-focused endeavours. “My first and foremost love is music. I am learning to produce at the moment, and I sing somewhat, but I am trying to find my sound. In the future, I would love to produce and put out music where I fuse both Barrington Levy and Lila Iké with Sri Lankan beats, but I feel that is something where I have to go on a journey and learn how to do,” she explained.

“Travelling is also a big part of my life as well. I travel so much to the point where my agents tell me you can’t be on holiday forever, but one of the perks of my job is I can get time off when I am not working. Also, physically, I always hated the gym, but I am such a Pilates girl now that I go three to five times a week, and it’s something I definitely enjoy.”

What’s up next for Shivaruby?

“Fashion is a tricky playground to plan. You can’t as you don’t know where you are going to be as it is a very fast-paced, uncertain environment,” the top model reflected. “I would love to do something non-profit through the industry, but I don’t know what yet. A lot of people have started things like coaching younger models. That is something I would want to do in the future. One of my ultimate dreams is to do a Vogue cover photo shoot in Jamaica in Portmore, where I grew up, and in and around Kingston — it would be a moment for me.”

lifestyle@gleanerjm.com