Thu | Nov 13, 2025

Shivaruby holds court in KNWLS ad campaign

London-based label recruits Jamaican-Sri Lankan model star

Published:Friday | April 25, 2025 | 12:06 AMOmar Tomlinson/Contributor
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From London to Portmore and back: Top model Shivaruby Premkanthan is one of the faces for the latest collection from the hot British label.
Contributed
From London to Portmore and back: Top model Shivaruby Premkanthan is one of the faces for the latest collection from the hot British label.
Raised by her late grandmother until departing Jamaica as a 13-year-old, Premkanthan’s KNWLS campaign visuals were photographed by Marc Asekhame.
Contributed
Raised by her late grandmother until departing Jamaica as a 13-year-old, Premkanthan’s KNWLS campaign visuals were photographed by Marc Asekhame.
With A-list celebs Dua Lipa and Bella Hadid counted among its fans, the latest KNWLS reveal from the Brit high-fashion label features Jamaican-Sri Lankan model Shivaruby Premkanthan in chic silhouettes.
Contributed
With A-list celebs Dua Lipa and Bella Hadid counted among its fans, the latest KNWLS reveal from the Brit high-fashion label features Jamaican-Sri Lankan model Shivaruby Premkanthan in chic silhouettes.
Daughter to a Sri Lankan father and Jamaican mother, the multi-’British Vogue’ editorial model was styled by Georgia Pendlebury for the KNWLS Autumn/Winter 2025 advertising campaign.
Contributed
Daughter to a Sri Lankan father and Jamaican mother, the multi-’British Vogue’ editorial model was styled by Georgia Pendlebury for the KNWLS Autumn/Winter 2025 advertising campaign.
The fresh KNWLS drop — featuring Premkanthan — according to the label’s designers Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault in a ‘WWD’ interview, is meant to “exude quiet confidence and textural depth that demands a second glance”.
Contributed
The fresh KNWLS drop — featuring Premkanthan — according to the label’s designers Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault in a ‘WWD’ interview, is meant to “exude quiet confidence and textural depth that demands a second glance”.
Browns, whites, and greys are the tonal hues comprising the collection's pieces, which also include the label's signature leather trousers.
Contributed
Browns, whites, and greys are the tonal hues comprising the collection's pieces, which also include the label's signature leather trousers.
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Jamaican-Sri Lankan model Shivaruby Premkanthan is serving fierce fashion in the just-out Autumn/Winter 2025 advertising campaign for the British womenswear label KNWLS.

The campaign collection, titled ‘Baby’, taps into “the art of the off-duty look” and spotlights Premkanthan in a palette of distressed prints, washed-out greys and bruised browns.

Between razor-sharp cropped jackets and velvet-finished denims, to full-length shearling coats and signature leather trousers, the new KNWLS drop is an on-trend smorgasbord of silhouettes by the designing duo of Charlotte Knowles and Alexandre Arsenault, who co-founded the label in 2017. A magnet for celebrities like music superstar Dua Lipa and supermodel Bella Hadid, the brand’s designing pair expounded on the inspiration for their latest collection.

Speaking to fashion industry journal Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) scribe Mikhat Mohammed recently, KNWLS co-designer Arsenault said the new collection’s mood boards came from members of the fashion industry, and individuals wearing kitsch outfits balanced with chic, modern silhouettes. “We liked the idea of taking some of those kitschy materials, comfy silhouettes and other pop culture ideas and reframing them in a KNWLS modern way,” Arsenault explained.

The United Kingdom-born Premkanthan – who landed on The Rock at age 3, and grew up in Waterford, Portmore, before returning across the pond in her early teens – appears in a series of atmospheric images lensed by Marc Asekhame personifying a languid elegance.

Co-starring with the Indo-Caribbean knockout for KNWLS is English model Iris Law, daughter of famous actor Jude Law.

The model pair, styled by Georgia Pendlebury, were separately shot for the new campaign, which the label’s founders proceeded to launch, in lieu of a presentation, opting not to host a Fall/Winter 2025 runway show at London Fashion Week back in February.

The KNWLS assignment is a fillip for the in-demand Premkanthan’s extended rise in the industry, having co-fronted advertising campaigns for Givenchy, Michael Kors, Wales Bonner and Calvin Klein within the last two years.

In a sit-down with The Sunday Gleaner last December, the ascendant model was unguarded in sharing her transformative career journey. “The thing about modelling that keeps me interested is definitely how fast things can change. The ups and downs get you addicted sometimes. But, I feel it is more positive than negative,” she conceded.

“The opportunities I get to meet people, the places I am positioned in, it’s just this intrigue and this constant growth into the person I have become. I am now outspoken and loud. Maybe that was who I always was, but the environment I have been put into bred my true self.”

lifestyle@gleanerjm.com