Belle Du Jour

Bella surprised us when she opened her mouth to speak; we were thrown by her full-blown Singaporean accent, peppered with Singlish. We later found out that while her parents hail from Tanzania, she was born and raised here, and currently attends a local polytechnic—studying engineering, no less, because she loves maths and physics, and she acknowledges that she is one of the few girls in her course. Would she wear her current outfit to school? “No lah,” she laughs. “I dress pretty casually. I’m usually in a tee and jeans.” Nonetheless, when Bella does dress up, she does a pretty good job; few people could pull off a full-length jumpsuit with such ease. She keeps the accessories to a minimum so as not to distract from the busy print. And as if this girl couldn’t be any more endearing, she offers this little nugget about herself: “I collect air-sickness bags from aeroplanes and keep perfume bottles. I guess I’m secretly hoping to display them in my home someday!”