Mark your style Fashion Show 2011 gets big name support


Blogs, Entrepreneur, Fashion, Guest blogger — Tags: , , , , , — admin @ 9:34 pm on May 4, 2011  

By Tina Kumar

Opportunity. Campaign. Business leaders. Young People. Fashion Show. It doesn’t really seem usual for these words to appear together in a sentence. Yet they still do…

What could this mean?

Tina and Anglee Kumar, 16 years old, are young twin entrepreneurs who support the Business in the Community Campaign: “Turning Work Experience into Work Inspiration” through which they’ve met many of UK’s leading chief executives/ chairman; recently at the BT Tower in September 2010, for an exclusive big conversation and celebration ceremony of the year’s success the campaign had brought. Where, Tina decided to organise a fashion show as part of the RISE (Rural Indian Schools Enterprise) Challenge; in order to raise money for rural schools in India through business ideas.

Tina and Anglee met the former chairman of Marks and Spencer, Sir Stuart Rose, to ask for his support. He agreed to provide the clothing, shoes and press gifts! He then introduced the girls to the Chief Executive of Barclays, Antony Jenkins, who after Tina had pitched the idea and requested a work inspiration placement provided a brilliant week’s work inspiration placement for the girls at Barclays Head Office in Canary Wharf and a personal donation of £100 to the event to help cover the costs.

There were three catwalks, spectacular dancing and singing performances and the Kumars even conducted a presentation in encouraging people to ‘Mark’ their ‘Style’ by: ‘ Making multiculturalism fashionable and not racism” this was to tackle racism and to make people aware of the fact that there are other ways to mark your style, through your personality and what you have to offer to our modern day society.

The show had its own logo and a specially designed set to fit with the theme of ‘Mark Your Style’. Also, there was brand identity and consistency within all materials produced towards the fashion show which made the event very classy and professional.

The twins grabbed the opportunities they got and made incredible use of them due to the campaign they support.
They put their heart and soul into the fashion show as young entrepreneurs and showed courage, passion and hard work to hold a successful fashion show. The event was Tina’s brainchild and having lead the project; she was responsible for producing marketing materials, ticket designs, publicity initiatives, performances, the photo shoots for the catalogue etc.

Gifted & Talented, Tina and Anglee, acted as role models, even the stylists, designed the make-up/ hair looks while managing over 60 participants including the young children, teenagers, singers, dancers and even… the teachers!
The media, Feltham Chronicle covered the event and Tina wrote an article covering the event for Your Local Guardian: here is a link: http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/yoursay/schools/8947361./

The twins showed a range of skills: tenacity, resilience, creativity, flexibility etc; gained support from business leaders in organising the event in their own time as it was an extracurricular activity!

The fabulous ‘Mark your style’ Fashion Show was on Thursday 31st March at Longford School.

Tina said everyone loved it staff and fellow students modelled the clothes from Marks and Spencer which ranged from smart casual to formal suits. “The show was very successful and was made to be very professional and a high profile event at the school. Free goody bags were provided along with refreshments. The show was very entertaining and although a charge was applied for the entry of the show; all proceeds made will be going to the RISE.” Over 250 people, students and other form the local community attended the event; over £500 was raised.

After the show Tina said: “” I have had a lot of fun and its good that we were able to put on such an event, creating a entertaining show, while at the same time contributing to such a worthwhile cause. The great thing is that so many people got the opportunity to be involved in something different and exciting and really had fun! Also, it has given me and my twin, Anglee, a wonderful experience as young entrepreneurs and I have to say I am really proud of myself and Anglee and hope that the show met the very standards that we expected of it. Also, just a word to everyone out there: The future is bright because the future is young people! This is because without the various young people involved with the show, the show may not have been as successful as it seemed to be.”

Anglee said: “I have had a lot of fun. Although, the experience has been absolutely mind blowing; I have learnt a lot and I have grown as an entrepreneur over the course of supporting the creation of the event. I hope that everyone else enjoyed the event and can’t wait for more opportunities to do something like this at a higher scale. I’m sure that’s what Tina wants, to do something like this again. It’s a lot of hard work though and it was great that we received so much support from the business leaders, school, campaign, teachers and especially the young people.”

WEXO has made a small donation towards the charity the twins support.

Hard work. Commitment. Time. Are three key factors that made the show a great success! Young entrepreneurs -Tina and Anglee- did really well and deserved the success they’d achieved.

Would you ever have been able to do what the twins did when you were 16?

Entrepreneurial Flair; have you got it? Can you get it?


Blogs, Entrepreneur, General — admin @ 2:31 pm on May 11, 2010  


In the most general sense of the word, an entrepreneur is someone who organises a business venture and assumes the risk for it. But true entrepreneurship goes way beyond that simple definition.

When most people think of entrepreneurs, a few well-known names probably come to mind, Henry Ford, Alan Sugar, Bill Gates… But the truth is there are millions out there. Entrepreneurs provide real growth in an economy, they spot a gap first and move fast to exploit it. They take the risk to get the reward. They are undoubtedly a hugely important feature of any economy.

But what do they all have in common? The vast majority of them certainly didn’t start off as world conquering business moguls. Alan Sugar started off making money by boiling and selling beetroot form a stall in Hackney. He later went on to start one of the most successful British computer companies of the 80’s and 90’s. Henry Ford started off dismantling watches of friends and repairing them. He went on to start the first mass production line and give the world the first affordable car, the Ford Model T. I’m using these people as examples because they are well known but the idea holds for all entrepreneurs, famous or not.

Everyday people start up businesses doing a variety of different things, but they all have one thing in common. An idea that they can do something better than it has been done before. The idea is where all entrepreneurs start, however, the distance between the idea and the reality is probably going to be further than you imagined! One way to bridge this gap is to gain as much experience as humanly possible. A great way to do this is to learn from others. Skills you learn that may not even seem initially relative may be of great use down the line.

‘It’s much easier to learn from other people’s mistakes than from your own. It’s often much cheaper too!’ Robin Kennedy WEXO Co-Founder

Many of the companies listed on WEXO are small to medium sized enterprises, started up by experienced people who have spotted a gap in the market they know they can exploit. As members of WEXO you have the chance to get in with these companies and learn first-hand what these seasoned entrepreneurs do day to day. Opportunities within large companies are great and the experience will undoubtedly be useful. But for those of you with that entrepreneurial flair, looking to be a trail blazer of the future, these are unique opportunities that you shouldn’t over look.

Paul Stewart
WEXO STAFF