Apannaka Kuliyapitiya is a model in Russia
A young woman who faced hurdles against modelling in Sri Lanka as she was black, emerged as runner-up in a Russian beauty contest recently.
Twenty-nine-year-old Apannaka, who hails from Kuliyapitiya, two hours drive from Colombo, faced considerable obstacles when she wanted to achieve her dream of modelling in Sri Lanka due to her dark complexion.
An English Teacher by profession, Apannaka was sashed runner-up in the Miss Sapphire World beauty. She beat 74 contestants from around the world to emerge in the top three.
One qualification to be a model in Sri Lanka is fair skin, she told Anura newspaper in Colombo after her victory, stressing that she was embarrassed and hurt about the treatment she received in her native country.
Catwalk professional Shenell Rodrigo, who has a Youtube channel to give tips to aspiring models, admits that light-skinned women get priority for modelling in Sri Lanka.
Asked about her unusual name, Apannaka Kuliyapitiya says her father, a devout Buddhist, borrowed the name from an ancient Jataka tale.
“People in Sri Lanka think that fair skin is the number one qualification to be a model. Some asked me to use various enhancers to turn my skin fairer, but I am proud of my natural colour and decided against artificial help to look beautiful. Some people even criticized my teeth when they heard that I did well in the beauty pageant, asking whether the judges gave me marks with their eyes closed!”
Speaking about her Russian experience, Appannaka says she lives in St. Petersburg. “While working as an English teacher, I do part-time modelling on the weekends and met a well-known photographer. People came to know about me from his photographs. There are not many black models in Russia. The funny thing is Russians think Sri Lanka is a part of India.”
Comparing the profession of modelling in the two countries, she says Russians have a better knowledge of beauty and the catwalk profession than Sri Lankans. “They appreciate beauty and art better and don’t criticize anybody based on superficial criteria. To give an example of their generosity, a Russian contestant lent her pair of shoes to another competitor whose shoes gave way on the stage. It is hard to imagine such kindness in Sri Lanka.”
The country’s beauty pageants acquired some notoriety recently when a former Mrs. World, Caroline Jurie, a Sri Lankan, forcibly removed the crown from the winner selected to participate in the forthcoming international pageant, alleging that she was a divorcee.
With the microphone in hand, Jurie mentioned a rule about being married and not divorced to take part in the pageant and placed the crown on the first runner-up’s head. Later, Jurie was arrested for questioning and had to forfeit her title, making way for the runner-up Mrs. Ireland to serve the remaining months of her tenure. (www.newstrails.com)
