Creative Confidential: Interview with Kabya Saikia

Photographed by Nicole Chui

Meet Kabya, a student at University of the Arts London: London College of Fashion, studying International preparation for fashion (IPF). Like me, this is the foundation year of her studies as she has chosen to focus on Fashion Media and Communication.

N: Why did you choose the course? K: They put me into this course.
N: What is your aspiration? K: (pause) N: What do you want to be? K: I want to have my own website, or work for a magazine like i-D magazine, Love magazine or Dazed and Confused. Well, Dazed and Confused.
N: Why do you like Dazed and Confused? K: Cuz it's so raw. Like, everything on it is so real. No one is being fake in their magazine, like, when they interview someone they're saying what's on their mind and there is no one to judge them for what's wrong or what's right. N: So like this interview? Hahaha- K: YES. Like this interview! Like face to face, Nicole and Kaby. N: I'm gonna write everything down..
N: What BA course do you want to venture onto? K: Fashion Journalism at London College of Fashion.
N: Why do you like fashion journalism? K: Well, it's just that I don't really like fashion journalism..I love to write, and I love to read. That does make me sound like a geek but I just feel like..If I'm ever upset or if anything happens to me...like, I have this whole wall built around me with books. I just enter that world and no one can disturb me, like, it's my first love, and writing of course, I loveee writing.
N: What made you realise you were destined for this? K: Well I never knew that I wanted to do fashion journalism. But I always knew that at some point of time in my life I'm gonna do something related to literature or english or something like that because when I was in 10th grade, I had my english exam and I wrote these 3 essays and I scored full marks in those. So my teacher said that "you should start writing your own stuff." Then I started off writing different articles, e-books, then stories although...they were like fan fictions at that point of time. Now, I write some sort of sensible things, and I also write for my blog. So when I started writing for my blog, that's when I realised "Yes, this is something I wanna do, I want to write." Doesn't matter for what, but, I want to write.

Photographed by Nicole Chui





N: So, what do you think about your course right now?
K: IPF, or....
N: IPF, because you're doing that right now.
K: The whole IPF thing or just media?
N: Everything. Your entire experience so far.
K: Well, my first thought was that it was interesting because I got to do everything like design and media, although, I hated design cuz I cannot draw or do anything in that. But, business and media were a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun doing business, but media was the one which I really wanted to do. For second term...I was...It was good, I mean, it was kind of boring. I'm really excited for this third term because for the 3rd term we'll be doing everything on our own and that's what I wanted to do when I came to this college. I didn't want anyone to interfere with my work. But at the same time, I did want some help from my tutors, and I guess third term is gonna be fun.

N: So what would you say..what would you have prepared more before this foundation? What advice would you give to others? K: Before if I would have got a chance, maybe, my sketches? I would have taken some classes, cuz I'm really bad at sketching and I hate my sketches. Um.. N: Wait, but they do life drawing here? Didn't that help you? K: No. N: Haha K: Not at all. N: Ok. K: I just suck at drawing! N: Oh K: I don't get proportions and that's really bad..I'm really bad at it. N: Mhm.. K: And..um..well I advise..I'm really not good at giving advice. All I would tell people is that..I'm a person who scores a D in my sketchbooks so as one of my friends..YOU SAID IT N: Haha K: To me, just draw whatever comes to your mind, whatever you see around you, just um..Don't be scared to put everything in your sketchbook because it is your best friend.

Photographed by Nicole Chui


N: Mm..What else...As a student aside from studying and all that, what do you like to do around London? K: Umm... N: What are some great things! K: I love to shop. N: Ok.. K: Hahaha! I'm a shoppaholic, I love spending my money on food and shopping for clothes and shoes and bags. Yeah! I'm a foodie so I love having food at different places with you girl N: HAHA K: And...Umm N: True, our INSTAGRAMS are living proof! Yes! Go check out our instagrams if you want some food porn. @kabya_94 and @nicolemmapearl

Photographed by Nicole Chui



N: What are the disadvantages of living here? K: Nothing actually, I consider London as my home now. I've grown to love it here. I love everything about it. Just like your project. You known how you said small things matter? N: Yepp K: Every small thing makes you fall in love with it. So even if there is something bad, you just grow to love it.
N: So specifically, what places do you like to go to? K: If you're asking me for going for a party or night out I would say go to Shoreditch. It's really good. N: Anywhere there right? K: Yeah! Just go anywhere in Shoreditch and it's your area! Also, I like Bricklane, because there is so much to see there like the graffiti or the shops and there's different cultures clashing. It's really nice in brick lane. But, I find Shoreditch really boring in the afternoon. I don't know why people love it so much.
N: What about places to eat? K: The breakfast club, and come to Hackney, come to east London and just walk into any small cosy cafe. I'll bet the food is going to be good there, it doesn't even matter which cafe. But yes, go to The Advisory they have great burgers and Bouchon Fourchette.
N: Ok! What about to shop since you said you love to shop. K: I love Bricklane, because it has those Sunday markets and the stuff is cheap there and there's vintage shit there. Also, well..you can go to Oxford Circus of course. It's where everyone goes to shop I guess.. N: Yeah that's more stereotypical K: But, it's only if you want to go to shops like Topshop, H and M or Forever 21 to shop. But sometimes it's good to go to the streets to check out vintage shops. But yeah, Bricklane is the best place to shop.
N: If you could go back in time and prepare more for coming here to London, what would you do? K: I guess I would have also worked more on my blog, and more written stuff instead of all the stupid art stuff that I made. Which, didn't even make any sense. N: What art stuff did you make? K: Well, I made a book cover for The Crucible. N: You did?? K: Yeah, but not for the real book. I just read the book and whatever was a conclusion according to me, I just made a book cover out of that. It was messed up and I made some ... Cultural thing and yeah, it didn't even make sense because I did not want to do design. Before coming to LCF I always wanted to do styling. I don't know why I made all those artsy stuff and painted my artsy stuff. So don't do that...do what you are GOOD at. Don't try to impress them with "Oh I have great art skills" try to impress them just what you are actually good at.
N: In the future do you plan on staying in London, or going elsewhere? K: If I can, I'd stay here in London. I love it so much. N: Any chance of you going back to india? K: NO WAY. I am never going back to india, I always wanted to run away from india. Sorry I do sound like a very bad indian but..I just don't like India. I mean, for fashion journalism it's not a great place. I mean if you want to be a designer, yeah it's great. For journalism it's not so great, but if I get a chance I would love to go to New York to work there. I love New York (city). So yeah, maybe work as a journalist there!
N: Cool! What's the best advice you were given from anyone here that you know, helped you a lot? K: There has been so many advices I don't know, like, YOU and me. You know whenever we sit down and have this chat we talk for hours and I don't even know we come up with these weird things that we talk about and it becomes helpful. So I think whatever we talk about, you can call that, advice. Plus, our tutor once told me that because at one point in my 2nd term I was like I cannot do this I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, "Stop worrying about it just do whatever you want to do not what they're telling you to do because it's your campaign and you are passionate about this topic." If you're passionate about it you can go ahead and do what you wanted to do in the first place.
N: Lastly, why London College of Fashion? K: The name itself just says it all. London is the best place to be, and, it's one of the best places to study.
N: Should people choose that? K: LCF is like, better than csm. I'm sorry to say, but I don't really like CSM. I just feel like it's way too hyped. Like people always go "Oh my gosh" CSM.
N: Why don't you like it though? K: Yes, I do feel like there's a lot of competition to get in to CSM, and it's all prestigious and everything. But, if you look at it it's just the whole advertisement. It's like Parsons in New York to be honest!!!
Thank you Kabya for letting me interview you. Be sure to check out the past interviews I have done with Runa and Karen if you want to know more about fashion/art/design school life in London!
You can find Kabya on tumblr and twitter.



If you have any questions or remarks, be sure to comment below and I will look at them.
xx Nicole