By Tejeshwar Singh
Growing up as the only turban-wearing Sikh boy for the majority of my grade school years, I was used to looking different from everyone else. In fact, I’ve always enjoyed being the kid that stands out. One thing I did struggle with growing up was expressing myself. As a child I was reserved, shy and not confident. However, I was quite observant. I was always intrigued by color schemes, patterns and designs- especially on apparel & sneakers. I started to get a kick out of putting together different outfits and matching them with my turban's color, and I just really enjoyed looking fresh. Fashion sparked confidence in me and my appearance, which helped me realize that I had a love for fashion.
My passion for streetwear and fashion grew to another level throughout my high school years. As a lot of us did, I grew up watching a lot of YouTube. Whenever I gained a new interest YouTube was always there for me to help me go full on in whatever it was that was keeping me busy, which when I was younger was Minecraft & WWE (lol). As I started to get more into the world of fashion and streetwear, I realized there was barely anyone out there with the Sikh identity really putting on for Sikhs in this field; truthfully, this isn’t an issue we’ve only faced in the world of fashion. Growing up, it was disheartening to turn on the television and very rarely see someone else who looked like me. It was even rare to see representation for Asians as a whole. When I think of any South Asain representation in modern pop culture my mind always circles back to Baljeet from Disney’s Phineas and Ferb and Ravi from Jessie. And if you’ve seen any of these shows, you know that, that representation was absolutely terrible. Constantly seeing our people only playing roles of people with accents, nerds and book worms was extremely aggravating and ultimately is a big reason why I do the work that I do today. Lack of representation in the Sikh community is a major issue that has demotivated our youth from pursuing careers they desire to pursue for the rest of their lives. Additionally, parents diminish their children's confidence by not allowing their children to pursue careers seen as “risky” due to not seeing others in our community pursue them. Also when I spent two years participating in the Junior Sikh Coalition, I’ve been able to tackle and learn more about issues we youth face such as the pressure for us to assimilate and abandon our Sikh identity & values, bullying and the overwhelming pressure of being the “model child”.
I began to pursue my career in fashion and media through my YouTube channel & Instagram page ‘Tejeshwar Singh’ (originally titled SneakerSinghs). I began to make fashion & lifestyle related vlogs on my YouTube channel and post outfit pictures on my Instagram page. Starting this allowed me to build an audience of my own and serve as some sort of representation for the Sikh community in the world of streetwear and fashion. Although my audience isn’t at the level where I would like it to be yet, I am vastly grateful for those that support what I do and feel an immense sense of gratitude when someone feels inspired by what I do and one of the most motivating aspects that has kept me going is receiving recognition from people who I have looked up to my entire life. The hardest part about starting a YouTube channel was putting myself out there. In the early stages of my channel, I was very nervous to be myself on camera. I was afraid of judgement. But at a certain point, I realized that as long as I knew what I was doing was right, nothing else matters. There will always be people who will never understand my vision and that’s perfectly fine.
I was able to carry on the experience of growing my own channel to work on marketing for different apparel & sneaker boutiques across Long Island where I was able to learn more about the business of fashion. I was also able to help build marketing campaigns for these boutiques with some notable people such as DJ Khaled, 6ix9ine, Jay Critch & Qias Omar. Working with these boutiques helped me understand even more of the ins and outs of running a retail business such as customer service and inventory. One of the most important things I did in my high school years was actually hunt down work experience in the field I want to pursue. There’s a lot that experience can teach you that books can’t. One of my favorite accomplishments in fashion is being, if not the only, one of the only Singhs to be featured on TheFader Magazine’s Hypefest Fall Style article. Getting more into modelling and acting is a major goal of mine that I am currently pursuing. I hope that one day I am able to be someone that Sikh youth can see when they turn on their television and be a part of campaigns for their favorite brands because I know the impact that had on me when I was a child.
Stepping your foot into this industry definitely is not one easy task. Most of the time when you’re applying for a role or to be a part of a campaign there’s hundreds of other people going for the same spot as you and facing rejection can be very demotivating. For example, In October of 2020, I was playing NBA 2K at my friends house when I received a message from a casting director for an Adidas x Noah shoot inquiring if I was available for the shoot. I made the mistake of instantly getting my hopes up as they ended up not going with me for the shoot. Being so close to accomplishing one of my goals but just coming off short definitely had me in my bag at first and left me unmotivated. However, it made me more hungry. After you face a loss or rejection you can either stay paused in that loss, or you can pick yourself back up and take it as a blessing to realize you can be working harder to push for more opportunity and finally achieve what you’re striving for. And honestly, seeing the route Adidas & Noah took with it by revolving the shoot around New York’s staple spot for Punjabi’s; Punjabi Deli made me very happy. I was genuinely excited that one of my favorite spots got that spotlight and big brands like them gave us some Sikh representation.
Current Day
I have a bittersweet relationship with 2020. As it wasn’t for all of us, 2020 was not an easy year for me. I started the year off at one of my lowest points and honestly as weird as it may sound, lockdown was a blessing in disguise for me. Quarantine allowed me to have a lot of time to self reflect on my life as well as refocus my energy on things that really mattered & people that really mattered to me and were always with me. One of my main goals when I started everything was to make clothing. This year I was able to finally complete my first ever merchandise drop titled ‘Sicko Singh Summer’. When I got the idea to make apparel of my own, I knew I wanted it to have meaning and since it was my first ever drop I wanted it to connect personally with my own life. The three main designs were titled ‘11PM Drive to Brooklyn’, ‘Mondays in Montauk’ & ‘Westhampton Waves’ and each represents important memories I made with my friends in summer 2020. I used this merchandise drop as a learning experience to gain more knowledge on running a business of my own so I have the skillset to start a legitimate brand of my own. I wouldn’t have been able to do this drop without everyone’s support and I’m extremely grateful for it. This year has also helped me make a decision. I was very confident to transfer to the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). When I began my college application process in 2019, I was well aware that I wanted my career to revolve around fashion and media but the idea of attending fashion school made me nervous so I didn’t even apply, even though my friends were encouraging me to do so. I fell under the societal pressure to attend a business school so I enrolled in CUNY Queens College. In my first semester I knew from the jump that it wasn’t the place for me and that I needed to be in a creative atmosphere, so I applied to FIT and will be attending this spring semester studying business in fashion. Along with being a full time student, this year blessed me with the opportunity to join droppTV’s marketing team to gain even more experience in the world of media and the business of fashion. As I mentioned before, entering the world of entertainment in modeling and acting is a major goal of mine and this year I was able to step my foot in. I was able to complete my first ever background acting role for a NBC drama I am not yet allowed to name but it will be aired 2021. Being able to finally step my foot onto a real television set was an experience I learned a lot from. A really fun fact about the shoot was that the hair stylist was a white, turban wearing Sikh man and what he said to me really stuck with me; “It’s finally nice to see a Singh playing a role here.”
About the Author
Tejeshwar Singh
Tejeshwar Singh is an 18 year old Sikh American from Long Island New York. He is currently studying fashion in Manhattan at the Fashion Institute of Technology. He has been working towards building a career in various aspects of fashion and media from a very early age through his YouTube channel & work in modelling, marketing, design and acting.
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