FROM FASHION TO ROLE-MODEL: BFW WITH PRITIKA SWARUP

With passion and confidence, Prikia Swarup lit up the zoom stage as the second speaker in Fashion at Brown’s series of fashion week talks. Moderator Shenandoah Duraideivamani, a senior at Brown and member of F@B’s Graphic Design Team, chatted with Pritika on everything from her international humanitarian advocacy work to her beauty and wellness brand, Prophecy.

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Freshly back home in New York City from Paris Fashion Week, model Pritika revealed that this year’s vibrant and highly creative Louis Vouitton show was among her favorites to watch. Pritika is a rising star in the modeling world, having been featured in major publications such as Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vogue India, as well as modeling campaigns for top brands such as Mac Cosmetics, Clinique, Fenty Beauty, and Tom Ford. Her esteemed modeling career started unexpectedly during her junior year of highschool, when she was scouted on a family trip to DisneyWord. The Disney experience worked its magic and Pritika embarked on a whirlwind trip to New York where she signed with Women Model Management, a top modeling agency. Leaving plans to join her family in a career of medicine, Pritika spent her early years in the fashion industry traveling around the world, which proved to be a formative experience in finding direction and expanding her perspective on diverse global cultures. 

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As the only Indian model based in New York when she was first scouted, Pritika reflected on how many in the industry were closed off to the idea of including ethnic models like herself in shows or campaigns. She observes tokenism and the treatment of diversity as rampant, deep-rooted trends within the industry. However, recent pressure to “be representative of the global diversity” and include a wide range of personalities and body types has pushed the fashion world forward - progress of which Pritika is certainly proud. 

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Pritika’s Indian-American identity is at the core of her wellness and beauty brand, Prophesy. It was built on Pritika’s realization that there was no globally-scaled brand that integrated the Indian wellness and beauty traditions with which she had grown up and which span thousands of years of intergenerational tradition and knowledge. An international brand informed by family rituals and Vedic practices and ingredients, Prophesy also seeks to engage a Western audience with effective products that meet the wellness needs of modern day women.

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Pritika has found overlap between the worlds of business and modeling, because after all, modeling itself is a business! Such skills as functioning in a competitive environment, interacting with different clients, and remaining flexible in ever-changing situations have been key in both realms. Her early financial career started at Columbia University where she earned a degree in financial economics and founded Columbia’s largest run student fund. In fact, Pritika has been hailed as the “world’s most fabulous financier” by the New York Post for her impressive work!

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Pritika serves as an ambassador for Operation Smile, a non-profit that provides free corrective surgery for children and adults born with cleft lips or palates. When discussing the importance of using her voice as a public figure to speak about humanitarian issues and causes that align with her values, Pritika advised that “no matter…what stage you are in your career, you can always give back, because you can never give too little.” On International Women’s Day, Operation Smile also launched its Women in Medicine initiative to improve access to education and medical expertise for its various volunteers, particularly women, in countries around the world. This philanthropic spirit informs not only her daily life, but circles back to her brand.

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Imparting some closing advice on our community, Pritika revealed, “confidence is really derived from loving who you are and what you’re doing.” Though at times modeling has challenged her confidence and made her question her personality, Pritika discovered power in being herself.

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We are so thankful to have learned more about Pritika’s impressive career and inspiring humanitarian work during Brown Fashion Week ‘22!