By Rihaab Mowlana
Pics courtesy Beauty By Rosh

Careers in beauty rarely move in straight lines. They expand through trial, repetition, pauses, recalibration, and moments that only make sense in hindsight. This season, Beauty by Rosh will partner with designers on the main schedule at London Fashion Week, a development that reflects not a sudden breakthrough but the accumulation of years spent building credibility across borders.

London Fashion Week is one of four events that continue to define the industry’s global hierarchy. Paris, Milan, New York, and London operate as tightly held ecosystems, where access is regulated, and beauty partnerships tend to circulate among a small number of established global brands. For an Australian–Sri Lankan beauty brand, founded by a Sri Lankan-born entrepreneur, to enter this space is unusual. For that entry to be earned without institutional backing or celebrity leverage is rarer still.

Beauty by Rosh was founded by Rosh, who was born and educated in Sri Lanka before migrating to Australia in 2018. Long before the brand existed as a product line, it existed as an online platform. In 2016, Rosh began creating beauty content under the name Beauty by Rosh, building an audience through consistency rather than scale. At the time, the content was filmed from her parents’ home, shaped by curiosity, experimentation, and a growing understanding of how underrepresented brown skin remained within mainstream beauty narratives.

That early work coincided with an exploratory phase of entrepreneurship. At 22, Rosh had started a marketing firm, an experience that provided exposure to branding, positioning, and client relationships, even as it became clear that beauty would be the more enduring focus. When she migrated to Australia, the move was both personal and professional. Launching a beauty brand in a new country meant learning a new market, building new networks, and doing so as a first-generation business owner without inherited infrastructure or industry shortcuts.

Beauty by Rosh emerged as a high-end makeup brand positioned around ethical practice. The products are vegan, cruelty-free, and sustainability-led, but these attributes were never framed as compensations for quality or luxury. Instead, the brand set out to occupy the same visual and experiential space as established premium makeup lines, while addressing gaps they often overlooked. Brown-skin-friendly formulations were central to that aim, not as a niche offering, but as a correction to an industry that continues to marginalise a large portion of its global audience.

The brand’s visual language reinforced this approach. Campaigns featured a wide range of skin tones, genders, ages, and body types, presented without hierarchy or explanation. Representation was treated as a given rather than a statement. Over time, that consistency helped establish Beauty by Rosh as a brand with a clear point of view, one that aligned product performance with values rather than placing them in opposition.

Its relationship with fashion weeks developed gradually. In the years 2022, 2023, and 2025, Beauty by Rosh served as the main makeup sponsor at Colombo Fashion Week. Those seasons placed the brand in high-pressure, fast-moving environments that demand adaptability and technical precision. Runway makeup leaves little room for error. Products must perform under harsh lighting, withstand long hours backstage, and translate across different designers’ aesthetics within tight timelines. The Colombo Fashion Week seasons helped demonstrate that the brand could operate within those constraints.

London Fashion Week presents a different set of expectations. The scale is larger, the scrutiny more intense, and the backstage environment often less forgiving. This season, Beauty by Rosh will collaborate with multiple British designers on the main schedule, creating makeup looks tailored to each collection rather than applying a uniform brand aesthetic. That approach requires flexibility and restraint, an ability to support a designer’s vision while maintaining technical consistency across models.

Some of the designers involved have previously worked with global beauty brands such as MAC and Lisa Eldridge. For Beauty by Rosh to be selected in that context suggests a level of confidence in both product performance and professional capability. These decisions are rarely sentimental. Backstage teams choose partners they believe will deliver under pressure, often with little margin for adjustment once shows are underway.

Rosh will be in London throughout the fashion week period, working backstage with teams and attending shows as part of the official schedule. Her involvement is direct and operational, reflecting a hands-on approach that has defined the brand’s development from its earliest days. For founders of independent brands, especially those operating across borders, visibility often comes with responsibility rather than detachment.

Beyond runway work, Beauty by Rosh has built an international presence through pop-ups and masterclasses held in cities including Paris, London, Singapore, Thailand, Malé, and Colombo. In 2023, Rosh partnered as the makeup sponsor for Mrs India World, adding to a portfolio that reflects steady expansion rather than rapid scaling. London, in particular, has become an area of focus. Over the past three years, the brand has held six pop-ups in the city, indicating a longer-term interest in establishing a permanent presence there.

The London Fashion Week partnership can be read as an extension of that trajectory. It reflects sustained engagement with the market rather than a single moment of exposure. In industries shaped by repetition and recognition, showing up consistently often matters more than arriving loudly.

There is also a personal dimension to Rosh’s visibility within global fashion spaces. She is a survivor of domestic abuse and the founder of BARE, a non-profit initiative that raises awareness about domestic violence and advocates for women’s empowerment. That work operates alongside her commercial brand, informed by lived experience rather than corporate positioning. While Beauty by Rosh is not framed as an advocacy brand, the founder’s history inevitably shapes how she approaches leadership, representation, and responsibility.

Reflecting on the London Fashion Week partnership, Rosh describes it as the most significant milestone of her career to date. She speaks about the effort involved in securing the collaboration and the uncertainty that accompanied the process. There is no suggestion that the outcome was inevitable. Instead, it is presented as the result of persistence, confidence in product capability, and a willingness to pursue opportunities that may not guarantee success.

For Sri Lankan audiences, this development carries resonance beyond fashion. It speaks to the growing presence of Sri Lankan-origin entrepreneurs in global industries, not through assimilation into dominant narratives, but through work shaped by migration and hybridity. It also highlights the evolving geography of luxury, where brands no longer need to originate in traditional capitals to participate meaningfully in their ecosystems.

Beauty by Rosh’s entry into London Fashion Week does not signal the conclusion of a journey. It represents a point along a longer continuum, one marked by movement between Sri Lanka, Australia, and now the United Kingdom. The brand arrives on the London runway without abandoning the values that informed its creation. In an industry that often rewards conformity, that continuity may prove to be its most enduring asset.

As the Autumn-Winter 2026 season unfolds, the presence of Beauty by Rosh backstage at London Fashion Week will be one detail among many. But for those paying attention to how global beauty is slowly being reshaped, it offers a clear example of what can happen when persistence, clarity of purpose, and technical readiness align over time.