May 30, 2024May 30 Author -That Perine power---sundaytimes.lk - "At 5'11, the first Sri Lankan 'super' model to strut along the haute couture runways of Paris, London and Milan, Perine is a local legend and an international celebrity...Perine was the only one of her siblings to inherit their father's height - a planter by profession, he was just over 6 feet tall, she says. Perine was only 15 when she and her family migrated to Switzerland ...She got her sister to take a series of photographs of her in a pair of jeans and a simple t-shirt, with her face scrubbed clean of makeup. They submitted these to an agency in Zurich. They loved her. Working with them, she would appear in several catalogues and advertising campaigns, learning all the while the art of her new trade - particularly how to walk and pose, right down to how one could heighten the impression of having "awake eyes." When Paris called, she was ready but that didn't mean it was easy. "For many, many years of my career, I lacked confidence." To someone from her very ordinary background, working in the fashion capitals of world was absolutely intimidating. "Having a very regular childhood, happy but sheltered, I felt not good enough, not confident enough," she says, confessing that she struggled with a very real fear. "I'm actually a very shy person. I felt like I had to take that out, take who I was out and be this other person. That person on the runway was not really me." Her solution was simply to not overthink what she had to do. Paris was a dream, made only more so by her extraordinary success. Her personal record at the Paris Fashion Week was an amazing 17 shows. A 'delivery' man on a bike would be waiting for her outside each, ready to carry her, zooming through the traffic from the Louvre to the train station or wherever her appointment was. Her performance here made her reputation and through the 80s and into the 90s, she modelled for nearly every design house of note, including iconic brands like Dior, Armani, Lagerfeld, Yves St. Laurent, Ungaro, Nina Ricci, Scherrer and Pierre Cardin. She would also make the covers of magazines like Cosmopolitan and Vogue, until in 1999, she abandoned the catwalk to begin work for Escada in New York"...
May 30, 2024May 30 Author Colombo Fashion Week,year?---Otara Gunawardene, Perine Fernando and Ramani Fernando. Pix by Nilan Maligaspe
May 30, 2024May 30 Wow, she is awesome! She worked a lot for Emanuel Ungaro in the early 90's and later became Escada's favourite. And she could easily compete with Yasmeen Ghauri for the tiniest waist on the runway! Louis Feraud Haute Couture SS 1994:
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