Interview and words by Naz Toorabally

T: @naztoorabally // IG: @naztoorabally

For each month of 2022, we’re spotlighting a South Asian creative or changemaker in the alternative scene through a series of interviews. You’ll find out how they got into their creative field(s) and what they’re up to now. We hope that by sharing these stories, it will inspire alternative South Asians and people of colour to enter the creative industries with confidence.

We kick off this series with Singaporean Indian creative and researcher Dil Kaur who wrote the first ever WEIRDO blog post and is currently a contestant on fashion reality TV show Project V – the Singaporean equivalent to Project Runway.

Dil and I caught up in December 2021 over Zoom. We’ve been following each other on Instagram for a few years now and exchange appreciation for each other’s work – specifically makeup lewks –  through comments and DMs. But this is the first time we’re speaking face to face, albeit still through the internet.

Dil lives in Singapore – she was born and raised there and is a third generation Singaporean. She tells me her mum grew up in a majority Tamil town in Malaysia, whereas her dad grew up in Singapore. Growing up, Dil wanted to be a fashion designer, and found herself exploring other creative fields including costume design and makeup artistry. Following her childhood ambitions, at 20 years old Dil went to major in fashion design while studying for her diploma in Apparel Design & Merchandising and simultaneously got a diploma in Professional Makeup Artistry. I wanted to learn more about how she found herself where she is today – namely killing it on Singaporean reality TV show Project V – and where she’s headed next.

Before our interview starts, Dil admits she’s thrown off by my accent (I’m from north London and other Asian people think I sound “posh”) as she’s never heard my voice before. We laugh over that and how surreal it feels to finally meet. But the pleasure is all mine because I’m the presence of an actual reality TV star – someone who is representing alternative South Asians on national Singaporean TV – but more on that later.

Having freelanced as a makeup artist and fashion designer, Dil, 25, says there’s a gap in the industry that she wants to fill. “As a minority in Singapore I grew up [experiencing] a lot of discrimination, but what really struck me when I entered the fashion industry in particular – I was like where are the Indians,” she says. Singapore is majority Chinese at 74.3% of the population and Indians form 9% of the population, but that doesn’t mean that South Asian culture should not be visible in the fashion industry in Singapore. Dil says that it’s South Asian culture like Bollywood, her aunties dressing up for weddings and the “glitz and glamour” that got her into fashion, and that she “had this moment where I was like there is so much creativity and glamour in our culture but why is this not in the industry.”

As well as being a creative, Dil aspires to become an expert in the fields of culture and public policy and is passionate about working within local communities to mobilise and sustain social and economic progress in Singapore. “It was a weird point in my life,” Dil reflects, telling me she didn’t know what she wanted to do career-wise. This moment of reflection (and a nudge from her mum) led her to pursue a degree in Communications and Media Studies in Australia. It was studying in Australia where she realised she had a “knack for studying the social and cultural aspects of the creative industries.” Yet, prior to this, she had felt that academia wasn’t for creative people like her. “For someone like me who was more creative and was told academia and ‘smart people things’ weren't for me, to be suddenly in a place studying the social aspects and to realise I was actually smart, I took that opportunity and I got into more academic and research sides of the industry,” she says. “The reason I still do both is because I feel I have this interesting place where I can talk about the politics of it all, the big brain part, but I can also talk about being a person in the industry working and consuming it. My larger goals are ultimately to do more in terms of community organising.”

In a world that tells us we should choose one career path or interest and focus only on succeeding at that, Dil is going against the grain and showing she can do it all. Our conversation suggests that Dil hasn’t found it easy to find where she fits in or where she’s going, but she sounds like someone who is open to new experiences which has certainly helped her on her journey.

Dil is currently a contestant on reality TV show Project V by Mediacorp (Singapore’s equivalent of the UK’s BBC), a 3-in-1 fashion competition where 10 models, 10 designers and 10 makeup artists compete in their individual categories to be crowned the best in Singapore. Each week contestants are challenged with a new theme and put into groups of three (one person from each category) to complete the challenge and whatever else the judges throw at them. It’s a Tamil show and although Dil does not speak Tamil, she understands the language as her mum speaks it fluently and says this did not prevent her from qualifying to be on the show as the producers wanted to give people from all Indian backgrounds the chance to apply. I know Dil for her makeup artistry, so I was surprised to find out she’d entered the competition as a fashion designer.

“I applied ‘cause literally the year before I spent all my time writing a thesis on why there wasn't much emphasis on creative careers in the Indian communities in Singapore,”she explains. “Suddenly this comes up and I'm like yeah, this is it.” But Dil might have never heard of this opportunity in time to apply if it wasn’t for one of her lecturers who recommended her to one of the producers and the rest was up to Dil.

it's always been a running joke, but not a running joke, that I was made for reality TV.

“I assumed it was like a drama that needed a costume designer. I was excited and suddenly this guy messages me about a reality TV show and explained the show to me and I was in bed, it was 12 in the afternoon!” she recounts. “It was a full circle moment. Apart from my actual career, I do a lot of BS on the internet, it's always been a running joke, but not a running joke, that I was made for reality TV, like one day I'm gonna quit and go on The Bachelor or something, so to literally get a message saying they want me on local Project Runway I was like OK sure!”

If you follow Dil on Instagram, you’ll understand why she is destined for reality TV – from her milk tea and bubble tea reviews to her makeup tutorials and rants, her blunt delivery and wit always has me in awe. Dil originally wanted to audition for Project V as a makeup artist, but as they had too many people auditioning for that category already she casually tells me she agreed to audition as a fashion designer instead.

“I auditioned ‘cause I really want to be on reality TV, and on the wholesome side I genuinely was sat in the audition room looking around me at the other Indian creatives that I didn't know existed. As much as I'm so online and I'm so connected, I was like there's so many of you that I've never seen before – I hate that, I wanna be friends with all of you, we should have a secret club!”

At the time of this interview, she has only been in two episodes: the live audition (Episode 2) and the first challenge (Episode 3). In both of these episodes, she won the challenges, receiving high praise from the judges with some even saying it was their favourite outfit. As a costume designer, Dil thinks about every detail in the look she is creating to tell a story, and it’s clear her eye to detail is a huge asset as she hasn’t been eliminated yet.

I had full red hair, you don't see people with red hair and like a half sleeve, existing and being praised, usually it's typecasted another way.

Having someone who looks like Dil on a show like this is not something that’s seen often. “I had full red hair, you don't see people with red hair and like a half sleeve, existing and being praised, usually it's typecasted another way,” she says. “So since the four weeks it's been on air, I've had younger people who have found me and been like, OMG I've never seen someone like you, I love that you are on TV, when I saw you I was like WOW OMG.”

Reality TV shows like this are all pre-recorded and aired at a later date, so Dil is more relaxed during our conversation than she would have been if she was hunched over her sewing machine working on the latest challenge. It also means she knows the outcome of the show, but she’s sworn to secrecy. However, she says that despite the tough competition, she’s feeling confident. She is currently taking a gap year from full-time work and working freelance for makeup and costume design clients.

To celebrate her designs from the show, Dil partnered with the same models and makeup artists to recreate the looks on their own terms, away from the stage lighting, cameras and pressure of being in a competition. She shares the recreations on social media as each episode airs and they are all exquisite and well thought out. It’s evident Dil really does mean it when she says she thinks about the entire concept from the details in the accessories to the character’s persona, and she’s very good at bringing her ideas to life.

It's so nice to see that I'm being validated in my home ‘cause I moved away to study in Australia and felt like my creative skills were more valued there than here.

“I'm really excited after so many years of doing this. It's so nice to see that I'm being validated in my home ‘cause I moved away to study [in Australia] and felt like my creative skills were more valued there than here. And having come back with so much more that I've learned and my renewed skills, to jump in and be like you did amazing, here's your win, I'm really like WOW I'm happy that I feel validated and I am excited to challenge myself more and see what else gets thrown my way.”

Being on the show has given Dil new found confidence in her work and she’s even gotten two new clients as a result of being on the show. Looking to the future, she says she’s “really keen on starting an alternative Indian wear brand” with small collections and custom pieces, but admits she’s not sure how she’s going to do this yet. However, what she does know is that she wants to “create a new vision of Indian wear that doesn’t conform to gender binary.” Dil says “as much as I love exploring gender all that it is philosophically, I do present as a cisgendered woman,” but notes that most of her friends who do not conform to the gender binary are also Singaporean Indian people and she therefore sees a gap that needs to be filled.

After quizzing Dil about Project V and life after the show, I ask her if there’s anything she wants to plug. Almost unexpectedly, she tells me with her social and cultural researcher hat on that she wants to find a platform where she can generate discussion around casteism, colourism and the north-south Indian divide, specifically in Singapore.

“South Indians make up the majority of [the Indian population in Singapore] and that's why [Tamil] is one of our national languages – that’s the predominant Indian culture in Singapore, but there's still this weird thing where North Indian communities, even the Sikh community that I’m part of, they very much try to distance themselves from the overarching Indian label because they don't want to be associated with South Indian culture because they see them as something below them.”

I am very aware of my position as a North Indian on this show and being there, not speaking the language.

Dil struggles to articulate what she’s trying to say, but the social and historical factors that uphold casteism, colourism and the divide between North and South Indians are far more complicated than they seem on the surface. What’s clear though is that Dil is aware of her privilege as a North Indian and wants to use her platform and knowledge to get people speaking about these issues as a first step towards dismantling casteism in Singapore. Being on a Tamil show, and feeling welcome and supported has also played a role in this.

“I am very aware of my position as a North Indian on this show and being there, not speaking the language… it’s just been a lot of what i've been thinking about. My mum grew up in Malaysia in a majority Tamil town, so really close to Tamil culture, and she speaks it fluently and because of that I grew up listening to it, so this whole time filming this show I never once felt I’m on a Tamil show I don't know what everyone’s saying, ‘cause I understood what everyone was saying around me and the cultural references that people are making. It was normal to me and never once was I made to feel like I was out of place, they were like she understands Tamil but doesn't speak it.”

Dil is a multi-talented person and this is just the beginning of her journey. If there’s anything you take away from her journey so far, it should be that you have more potential than what society decides, you don’t need to know all the answers and being open to new experiences can lead you to unexpected opportunities.

You can follow Dil’s work on Instagram @by.dil.k and her personal account is @bandung.iceblend. Follow Dil’s progress on Project V on YouTube.