Amilani Perera; passionately, truthfully and enthusiastically balancing herself as an individual, a daughter, a fashion designer, a wife and a mother has been expressing her inner-self through art, creativity and fashion sharing fourteen years of experience being in the fashion industry locally as well as internationally maintaining her self-titled brand ‘AmilaniPerera’. She never failed to surprise her audience with the utilization of fashion as a universal language to raise awareness of issues involved in gender-based violence and sustainability.
Having wanted to embark on a journey as a fashion designer from the age of 14, Amilani’s keen interest in design led her to study arts at A-levels before going on to pursue a degree in design at La Salle College of Arts in Singapore.
With a dream of creating her own label when she had just returned from Singapore, Amilani entered the fashion industry to gain professional experience before starting out on her own, taking advantage of the advice of her parents.
“It became a step closer to my dream,” Amilani shared. After starting her career as a designer at MAS Holdings for a home-grown lingerie brand Amante, her desire to launch her own brand in the industry faded when she decided to furthermore pursue her MBA in design. She has also worked as a consultant for Arvind Lifestyle Brands, Bangalore, India.
She spoke about her decision to apply for Colombo Fashion Week, “I applied for Colombo Fashion Week and once I was selected, the rest was history.” Selected as one of the three new emerging designers at the Colombo Fashion Week 2013, Amilani marks that milestone as the stepping stones that led to her eponymous brand ‘AmilaniPerera’.
Amilani Perera launched her latest bold and empowering collections titled ‘Unbreakable’ and ‘With-Her’, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund of Sri Lanka (UNFPA) – the UN agency for sexual and reproductive health, and the lead agency working on sexual and gender-based violence.
Being able to blaze new trails for the brand through her inspiring collections, Amilani said, “Recently the brand became a voice for women who suffer violence in silence, an issue I am deeply passionate and concerned about.”
UNFPA
Her partnership with UNFPA helps uplift and empower abused women in Sri Lanka by involving survivors of violence in product development, whereas, the affected women involve themselves throughout the creation of a collection; with designs and hand-writings of them, making this brand a platform to express themselves.
The collaborations go beyond the path as Amilani engages her brand with Colombo Fashion Week and The Design Collective to ensure it reaches an expanding audience locally and internationally. Amilani shared that “the story behind the brand and its collections is how survivors of violence can rise up and gain strength despite her dark time, because she is a fighter. Women are Unbreakable. We are With Her.”
Since the inception, AmilaniPerera has been a ready-to-wear brand driven by a dual purpose: to provide the wearer with a truly unique garment and to enhance a message to society while bringing out the true purpose of the brand every time a collection is introduced. “These designs will carry the voices of abused girls and women, as I take the designs to the world to raise a voice for the silent,” Amilani explained.
Stepping back on to the local fashion industry of Sri Lanka, Amilani mentioned, “it’s not always easy to find excellent and reliable craftsmanship sometimes which seem quite surprising considering the country we live in!” Amilani feels that the global fashion industry is still rather dated in their approach to fabric choices. She believes that her voice including other similar voices which speak against these norms will be heard and she continues do what she can to make a change that will benefit the entire environment.
Vast change
Amilani reckons that Sri Lanka has the ability to bring a vast change to the local fashion industry, if it values its’ local productions by establishing more fabric mills and by giving a chance to the local artisans to express themselves more creatively.
Amilani Perera; an empowering and an inspiring woman shares words of inspiration to every individual out there considering a career in the fashion industry, “be enthusiastic in what you do, and always be true to yourself. In every dark tunnel there is a light of hope.”
With all experiences and achievements in hand and plans in the making, it is quite certain that we could definitely hope to witness more of Amilani Perera designs strutting down the runway and to be spoken of with time to come.