- Imesha Ruwanpura on her customisable clothing line
By Venessa Anthony
Managing a full-time job and higher education at the same time is no easy feat. While some of us struggle with just one, impressively enough, Imesha Ruwanpura opened up her own business while working and studying full-time.
During whatever downtime she has, she focuses her energy on her line, MESH Clothing. Perhaps this ability was passed down by her mother, who is currently employed at a bank and runs her own business as well. Having an inspiration and idol such as her mother to look up to from childhood has always left her thinking that the world was full of opportunities and yearning to follow in her mother’s footsteps.
Ruwanpura is a past student of Musaeus College, Colombo, and holds a first-class degree in international business from Plymouth University, UK and a postgraduate diploma from CIM, UK. Currently, she is working full-time at MAS Holdings in the business development unit while also running her own clothing line.
In conversation with us on how she discovered her passion for designing, she shared that her mother was skilled with a needle and thread since her childhood, and passed on her talent to Ruwanpura. Despite a love for fashion from her childhood, sewing was not something that she particularly enjoyed: “I never really had an interest in learning how to sew.” During the pandemic lockdowns, like the rest of us, Ruwanpura too was idle at home with a lot of time on her hands, so she decided to learn to sew with her mother’s help. She started with a simple blouse and almost instantly realised that her mother’s natural talent had been passed on to her. After honing her skills, she eventually started creating clothes for herself.
“Growing up around sewing machines, fabrics, and pattern blocks certainly had an impact on my interest in fashion,” she told us. The moment she began fantasising about owning a business she could call hers was when she first stepped foot into her mother’s former workplace – Brandix. Recalling that moment, she said: “I was only an 11-year-old girl, overwhelmed by all the work that went into stitching a single garment.” She told us that she still recalls those memories and moments, and every day, it keeps her striving to perfect her brand.
Once she had a steady stream of clothes at her disposal, she opened MESH Clothing almost exactly a year ago. When talking about what it is about her brand that stands out in an ever-changing market, she told us that while one could easily find hundreds of clothing stores offering gorgeous pieces at a standard UK size range, MESH Clothing offers her customers the opportunity to provide their own design and get it tailor-made to their measurements.
Her love for fashion and playing dress up as a child transcended into her designs. “I loved finding outfits that fit me like it was made for me, and I believe every woman should experience the moment where they try on an outfit and it fits like it was made for them,” she told us.
Every one of her collections allows the customer to decide on every little detail. “There’s a skirt you love and you wish it was longer? No worries, we got you! We will be tailoring each garment to fit the exact measurements our customers provide,” she explained.
Ruwanpura also shared that she is a huge fan of the saying “Small girl, big plans”, as she does have several that she’s working on. In the future, she hopes to launch several other labels under her name, catering to niches like men’s wear and wedding guest wear, offering customisability for all garments. She is also slowly working her way into owning a garment factory, and named that to be her biggest aspiration in life, which she hopes to achieve someday soon.
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