Creativity seems to flow steadily through the veins of Divya Rao’s family. “When I was about 14 years old I watched my mum and grandmother sew all the time and they were my true inspiration,” she says. “I learned sewing and embroidery from my grandmother and from then on, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing fashion.”
As soon as she could, Divya enrolled into the National Institute of Fashion Design, India and experimented with fabrics until she reached a point where her designs outgrew her technical ability. She then enrolled into RMIT and it changed her life.
“I love the idea of all-encompassing craft that satisfies so many technical and creative aspects of designing,” she asys. “I have been following my nose and taken every opportunity given to me to the fullest and I simply want to enable myself to be on a continuous journey of creative learning.”
Divya’s self-titled label has been nominated as a finalist in the Debut competition at Fashion Exposed Melbourne. We took five with the emerging design star to chat further on her inspiration; the hand beading and embroidery in the debut collection; and the beautiful sanskrit translation to the label name.