Man of many talents and visions

Demi HEWAMANNA

Prasanna Pathmanathan is a name all too familiar in the country today. Beginning his career in writing, he is now one of the names that you would hear everyone saying when you enter the world of fashion.

He was just another ordinary boy who loved to write. It was this hobby that made him Chief Editor for a South Asian magazine called Agora thus pushing him to the Sri Lanka media. He has being writing for Chokolaate magazine from its inception interviewing artists models and people in general.

Through talking to models, fashion designers both local and international, Prassanna realized how much the fashion industry has come up and how many enthusiastic and talented designers were there in Sri Lanka.

Flamboyance 2011

This was one of the reasons for him to get together with Leo district 306 C1 and organize a fashion show for a cause - Flamboyance 2011 - a highly successful event.

This is where the doors opened for him and many lucky talented young designers as well. Working together with some of the top models, designers and choreographers in the fashion industry of Colombo, Prasanna created his name and mark. After receiving great feedback from people about Flamboyance 2011, many people actually got to see true potential in some of the designers who are studying fashion as their main career in life.

After Flamboyance his second successful event was the Chokolaate Mother Daughter Fashion show held last Mother's Day, which also brought out opportunities for many young talents. At this event, there were no professional models but actual mums and daughters dressing in style and proving age never matters in fashion.

"Today, everyone wants to be a model and models can be actually categorized as a ramp model or commercial model. Anyone can become a commercial model if they got the right face or smile or just that spark, but not everyone can become a ramp model which is something some people just don't understand", says Prasanna.

The newcomers think that they learn modeling just after one walk on the ramp, Prasanna adds. There is a huge demand for female models than male models in Sri Lanka. When I got invited for events to judge them or just be part of them, I always did my homework and got to know more about I was going to see and understand it more. And there is so much improvement that has to be done from the standards to the quality.

Mr. Earth 2011

His love for writing, meeting people, interacting and sharing views and ideas of everything concerning the fashion industry brought him to where he is now. And today, he has achieved the opportunity to represent Sri Lanka for the first time ever as one of the seven juries to judge the Mr. Earth 2011 pageant to be held in October in Central America.

He was also appointed as the National Director for Sri Lanka to nominate the Mr. Sri Lanka for Mr. Earth 2011.

National director

He got this one in a million chance opportunity when one of the organizers of the event saw his interview conducted by Prime TV on YouTube and contacted him. Through research and finding more about him, they offered him the post of National Director to choose a candidate from Sri Lanka to participate in the pageant, and then followed on with asking if he would be interested to be one of the jurors.

Through phone interviews and then a written one (and doing another research on the jury part), he submitted his portfolio and voila became the first Sri Lankan to have a place in the jury.

Many look at the fashion industry as a 'not forever' career, but there is always more to what meets the eye.

It's not easy to be in the fashion industry. The demand a model or a fashion designer has is very strenuous. People just don't make name - they earn it through talent, commitment and dedication. As I have seen personally, a model has to go from one place to another to be on the top and it's the same for the designer. Not everyone shares the same taste as you and I. What B likes, A more not like or vice versa. As Prasanna says, if anyone really wants to be a model, they should study what they are doing, see what's the latest trend is and see what the market is looking for.

Prasanna also has more to see than what we actually see in him.

He is just 25 years of age, and is reading for his degree in Psychology, holds a Bachelors degree in Information Systems with Business Management from the University of Westminster (UK) as well as a chartered marketer from UK.

Multi jobs

Believe it or not, he is also a lecturer for undergraduates (all of who have 100 percent successful rates) at IIT, guiding them on their research projects and thesis and he is the Head of Marketing at Cameron Pale and Medina.

He also has his own talents up his sleeve. He can sing and also do fusion dancing. He has being trained in music by his guru Sathya Mani Rajalingham and has performed in some functions as well.