KITTY PHILIPS

One of the most down to earth and creative models you will ever meet, she combines a healthy sense of humour with a great passion for fashion modelling. In Europe or Mauritius, she grace and catwalk and inspired many stylist and photographers.

After 11 successful years in the modelling industry, she still manages to surprise and create the buzz around her with her enthusiasm, freshness and positive energy. She now shares her experience with new models by guiding them in the career and promoting to influent people of the industry. She sometimes organise workshops with new faces to help them gain confidence. She strongly believes that one could use a more holistic approach to modelling and try her best to transmit this philosophy to new girls getting into this arena.

Backstage, she turns out to be an innovative choreographer and loves directing fashion events. Besides modelling, she just finished her very first feature film, which will be screened in 2010. Being the main character in a drama movie was extremely challenging given that she has no cinematographic background but she was absolutely dedicated to it and even shaved her beautiful black hair for the final scene.

She has been pencilled for more productions but prefers to wait and see the results with the first film to be able to assess her play before getting totally into the industry.

She is now working on having a modelling school in Mauritius and invite international agencies to scout for new faces in her motherland.

Mauritius on track to be fashion capital

On the inputs provided by Mauritius bureau chief Rajiv Agnihotri, Ritu Shukla was in touch with Kitty for a candid conversation on fashion industry and her future plans.

How do you rate fashion industry of Mauritius viz global fashion scenario.

I have the chance to travel a lot to Europe and love to be at Fashion weeks. Mauritius is not yet into the spirit of organising such events but I totally believe that we should start. We have a lot of talent here and it's a shame that designers don't have enough support to show their creations internationally. Since 3 years now, the first fashion magazine was published on the island. Essentielle, the monthly magazine generated a certain interest for fashion. Although it is not comparable to London or Milan I like to think that Mauritius is on the right track to become a new fashion capital.

Revenue generation in a small island would be a challenge, how do fashion community sustain this challenge?

Textile industry is one of the pillars of the economy. Mauritius has been able to generate a good reputation in the global players of the fashion industry providing high-quality products at competitive prices. Europe is our main market. Some of the main companies sourcing apparel from Mauritius include; Armani, Calvin Klein, Jasper Conrad, Abercombie & fitch, Galerie Lafayette, Guess, Kookai, marks& spencer, Net, Tommy Hilfiger, Victoria's secret, Zara, Mango, Harrods, La redoute, 3 suisses.

Of course we also have designers who prefer to create for the Mauritian Market, For example Catherine Boyer from Blanche Creation, an amazing wedding dress designer who chose to dedicate her talent and expertise to the Mauritians.

Patricia Lagesse from La maison tafta who has her Shop in Caudan Waterfront and Sunset Boulvard is really talented to create a buzz around her new creations and has a lot of success with tourists visiting the island.

How do creativity of Mauritius artists reaches global platform? Internet do offer a platform but physical appearance is vital to show case creative work, do you have regular exchange programs with friendly countries?

It is very challenging for Mauritian models to make it into the industry internationally because of work permits and Visas. Some would try it out while studying abroad but still, study would be their priority. Modelling is a new craze in Mauritius so there's still a lot of work to do in order to attract the attention of the authorities to have their support. I had the pleasure to work with a lot of Indian models who were invited for the shows of Neeta Lulla or Mauritian Designer Lida O'reilly but I hope that one day we would also have the chance to be invited in other countries. Or that Mauritian designers who succeed internationally would bring us to showcase their creations instead of booking models from other countries. Recently two of our models were in the spotlight; Raquel Rault who has been chosen to be the face of in-panema internationally and Clara Thierry who was the finalist for Elite model Search and who signed a contract with them. I believe that the new generation will have more chances compared to when I started.

Ravi Jetsan, from RAVIOR, has often been invited in international fairs. He will be in Paris on the 27th of November to show his creations at le Mathurin for 'Inattendu' jewel exposition. He is really talented and I hope that it will bring a lot of new opportunities for him.

Mario Guillot from IVPLAY also opened shops in South-Africa, Paris and London. So yeah watch out for Mauritian brands, designers and models.

KITTY PHILIPS

One of the most down to earth and creative models you will ever meet, she combines a healthy sense of humour with a great passion for fashion modelling. In Europe or Mauritius, she grace and catwalk and inspired many stylist and photographers.

After 11 successful years in the modelling industry, she still manages to surprise and create the buzz around her with her enthusiasm, freshness and positive energy. She now shares her experience with new models by guiding them in the career and promoting to influent people of the industry. She sometimes organise workshops with new faces to help them gain confidence. She strongly believes that one could use a more holistic approach to modelling and try her best to transmit this philosophy to new girls getting into this arena.

Backstage, she turns out to be an innovative choreographer and loves directing fashion events. Besides modelling, she just finished her very first feature film, which will be screened in 2010. Being the main character in a drama movie was extremely challenging given that she has no cinematographic background but she was absolutely dedicated to it and even shaved her beautiful black hair for the final scene.

She has been pencilled for more productions but prefers to wait and see the results with the first film to be able to assess her play before getting totally into the industry.

She is now working on having a modelling school in Mauritius and invite international agencies to scout for new faces in her motherland.

Mauritius on track to be fashion capital

On the inputs provided by Mauritius bureau chief Rajiv Agnihotri, Ritu Shukla was in touch with Kitty for a candid conversation on fashion industry and her future plans.

How do you rate fashion industry of Mauritius viz global fashion scenario.

I have the chance to travel a lot to Europe and love to be at Fashion weeks. Mauritius is not yet into the spirit of organising such events but I totally believe that we should start. We have a lot of talent here and it's a shame that designers don't have enough support to show their creations internationally. Since 3 years now, the first fashion magazine was published on the island. Essentielle, the monthly magazine generated a certain interest for fashion. Although it is not comparable to London or Milan I like to think that Mauritius is on the right track to become a new fashion capital.

Revenue generation in a small island would be a challenge, how do fashion community sustain this challenge?

Textile industry is one of the pillars of the economy. Mauritius has been able to generate a good reputation in the global players of the fashion industry providing high-quality products at competitive prices. Europe is our main market. Some of the main companies sourcing apparel from Mauritius include; Armani, Calvin Klein, Jasper Conrad, Abercombie & fitch, Galerie Lafayette, Guess, Kookai, marks& spencer, Net, Tommy Hilfiger, Victoria's secret, Zara, Mango, Harrods, La redoute, 3 suisses.

Of course we also have designers who prefer to create for the Mauritian Market, For example Catherine Boyer from Blanche Creation, an amazing wedding dress designer who chose to dedicate her talent and expertise to the Mauritians.

Patricia Lagesse from La maison tafta who has her Shop in Caudan Waterfront and Sunset Boulvard is really talented to create a buzz around her new creations and has a lot of success with tourists visiting the island.

How do creativity of Mauritius artists reaches global platform? Internet do offer a platform but physical appearance is vital to show case creative work, do you have regular exchange programs with friendly countries?

It is very challenging for Mauritian models to make it into the industry internationally because of work permits and Visas. Some would try it out while studying abroad but still, study would be their priority. Modelling is a new craze in Mauritius so there's still a lot of work to do in order to attract the attention of the authorities to have their support. I had the pleasure to work with a lot of Indian models who were invited for the shows of Neeta Lulla or Mauritian Designer Lida O'reilly but I hope that one day we would also have the chance to be invited in other countries. Or that Mauritian designers who succeed internationally would bring us to showcase their creations instead of booking models from other countries. Recently two of our models were in the spotlight; Raquel Rault who has been chosen to be the face of in-panema internationally and Clara Thierry who was the finalist for Elite model Search and who signed a contract with them. I believe that the new generation will have more chances compared to when I started.

Ravi Jetsan, from RAVIOR, has often been invited in international fairs. He will be in Paris on the 27th of November to show his creations at le Mathurin for 'Inattendu' jewel exposition. He is really talented and I hope that it will bring a lot of new opportunities for him.

Mario Guillot from IVPLAY also opened shops in South-Africa, Paris and London. So yeah watch out for Mauritian brands, designers and models.