Style under the spotlight : Sherlin Seth
An exclusive interview with the fashion icon and model
Festember ’17 was a harmonic confluence of every aspect of culture in one place. Of the many events that took place during Festember, arguably the most visually and aesthetically pleasing were the Fashionitas event and the Mr. and Ms. Festember events. The talent that was showcased was unparalleled and needless to say, the judges who had come down to crown Mr. and Ms. Festember were also stars soaring high in their fields. With a fiery auspice of glam and glitz, James Abraham, cine costume designer of ‘Mundasupatti’ fame, Senthamarai Gokulakrishnan, a renowned designer, and Sherlin Seth, Femina Miss India ’17 finalist judged the event.
Making it in the fashion industry is not an easy job. Becoming a successful model while also excelling at an engineering course is clearly more arduous. Yet this is exactly what Sherlin Seth has managed to do. Being only 21, she is fresh out of college, with her bachelor’s from ECE in her hands and six inch stilettos on her feet.
Team Festember was opportune enough to grab coffee with Sherlin. In the little chat that we had she shared with us her story, plans, and the experience she gained while working with some of the biggest names in the fashion industry.
For an engineering student with a GPA of 9.56, a modelling career of makeup and gloss wasn’t really on the cards from the beginning. Her first experience with the fashion world came at the Campus Princess beauty pageant, in which she qualified for the finals in the Miss India Campus Princess category. For a person who never used to wear heels before, that was a defining moment in her life. Among the chic and style that she got to experience in that pageant, she learned the grace and the elegance involved in modelling. That is why she encourages parents to not hesitate in taking their kids to beauty pageants, as such a learning experience could also instill in them a desire to stand out.
With the Campus Princess Pageant happening when the Indian farmers’ protests were at their peak, she felt the need to be the voice to soothe and aid the farmers in their plight. She did so when she announced in the pageant that her main goal was to find a relief to the farmers’ cause. Apart from garnering attention to support the farmers, she resolved to act in favour of the farmers with her engineering background too. In effect, Sherlin designed a weather model that made full utilisation of Arduino (An open source electronic platform which utilises chipsets and circuit boards to read inputs and provide outputs) to run a variety of sensors. The model aimed to grow animal fodder in a closed space hence assuring pure and unadulterated dairy supply.
Being a fashion model is a lot harder than most people think. For Sherlin, this meant a rigorous schedule of waking up at 6 AM every day, doing yoga, and going to the gym before even starting her work for the day. And as she had already kick-started her modelling career while she was in college, she had to attend classes all day, and spend the evening studying, driving to and completing shoots. This meant that she returned only by 2 o’clock in the night, only to wake up 6 AM the next day. What spurred her on was her passion for what she was doing. The fact that she did not belong to a family that had any connections in the industry or did not have any nepotism favouring her did not deter her in the least.
A strong proponent of hard work, Sherlin believes “luck is just hard work meeting opportunity”.”Because, if you are not working hard then you won’t be able to recognize the opportunities you get,” she explains.
With the sun rising further up in the sky and Trichy beginning to spew on us its September heat, our little interview came to a close.
-Co-Authored by Venkat Swaminathan.
