Shikin Gomez says it’s all about inner work.
It was at the recent KL Fashion Week that I saw Shikin Gomez back on the runway again, walking for local label MSYD. Dressed in an electric blue pleather jacket and shorts set with lace-up boots and thigh-high garter socks, Gomez commandeered everyone’s attention as she walked out on stage as one of the trio of closing models. She was radiating confidence, and that impression stayed with me until the next day when we met for our cover shoot.
How are you so confident? I asked her. What you see today—on the runway, through the camera lens—is a result of years of effort and practice in working on herself to achieve that confidence. Gomez doesn’t believe in faking it till you make it. Eventually, that facade would crack, and people would be able to see through you. No—she prefers doing the actual work of identifying the things that need changing within her. “I grew up a very shy person,” she confessed. “I don’t think [being confident] was something that changed overnight. It built up gradually over the ten-plus years I’ve been [modelling]. It’s been a constant effort.”
Know your worth
“To me, confidence comes from within—by knowing your own worth, what you can offer, and that your intentions are good. It comes with practice. You have to put yourself out there and be uncomfortable. Sometimes that means starting the first conversation, or being the first to say hi, or owning up to a mistake instead of hiding from it. When you own your mistakes, people are generally more forgiving, and that in itself reads as confidence—because you’re forgiving yourself too and showing that you’re trying to do better.”
“I don’t actually like being comfortable. It’s fine for a while, but it starts to feel like coasting, and eventually I get restless. That’s part of why I moved out of Malaysia to build my career in Europe and the US. I love Malaysia—it will always be home—but I felt I was becoming too comfortable there, and I knew I had more to offer.
The journey from then to now
Unlike most top models in the industry, Gomez did not debut at a very young age—she was already halfway through her university course in Communications and Media when she did a favour for a friend studying photography, who needed help with a fashion assignment. The friend’s professor, who happened to be on set, asked her: “Have you ever tried modelling?”
She hadn’t, and he encouraged her to try it out. “Eventually, I had to make a choice: keep my full-time job or pursue modelling properly,” she recalled. What pushed her to commit, she said, was realising how superficial the industry could be about age. “There’s a shelf life—you peak, and then you either climb higher or you don’t. I thought, I’m young now—I might as well do this for as long as I can, until I couldn’t anymore.”
Over a decade later and a runner-up win in Asia’s Next Top Model, you can say that Gomez has found her calling. In fact, that experience gave her the push she needed to propel her career even further. Modelling soon took a life of its own even during the series’ filming. “It opened up a world I didn’t know was possible in such a short space of time,” she said. Gomez had a unique position of being able to stay in the game for basically the entirety of the filming, and even won some challenges along the way. “I was the Zalora ambassador at some point and a Subaru ambassador at another,” she said proudly. “None of that would have come my way from just modelling alone—it happened because I was on the show.”
The beauty of confidence
While she feels most confident about her face card, Gomez attributes her full head of hair to be a star of its own too. “It’s completely natural—no extensions, nothing,” she beamed. It was true. At various points throughout the photo shoot, different people marvelled at her hair. Wow, are those curls real? Yes, they are. Does she have a wig on? No, she doesn’t. Everything was real, save for the bangs. From curly to straight to sculptural, Gomez’s hair worked double time with the help of Schwarzkopf Professional’s Session Label series, starting with The Thickener, designed to provide volume, grip, and control, as well as The Definer, which also helped control and protect against heat damage from styling tools. Throughout the photo shoot, the Session Label No. 3 The Strong—a lightweight yet strong-hold finishing hair spray—was never too far behind to keep hair in its place.
SUPER STRUCTURE, Skirt
CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN, Shoes
Class is in session
Having the right tool at the right moment brings a unique confidence, and that’s the foundation of Session Label. Schwarzkopf Professional’s exclusive styling line feels like a stylist’s toolkit, featuring fourteen formulas designed for the demanding realities of session work: backstage chaos, tight schedules, and hair that needs to withstand studio lighting. Ambassadors Tyler Johnston and Nick Irwin present the collection in three parts: preparing the canvas, mastering techniques, and achieving the perfect finish. Treating hair, as Johnston puts it, is like fabric to be crafted rather than just styled. This method emphasises precision over shortcuts, ensuring that every layer is purposeful.
What sets Session Label apart isn’t just the variety of products, but the design behind them. These formulas are made to be layered and mixed without clashing or weighing hair down, allowing stylists the freedom to be creative instead of sticking to a strict formula. Even the smallest details are intentional: colour-coded nozzles enable stylists to grab the right hairspray during a shoot without losing focus to check labels, and every product is vegan, reflecting an industry that is increasingly mindful of both the ingredients in its tools and their impact.
In the end, Session Label is more about philosophy—the essential elements for a stylist to create their own signature style. As the brand states, the products belong to them, but the artistry is yours. This principle runs throughout the entire collection: technical performance that supports individual creativity, rather than the other way around.
Photography: Edmund Lee
Creative Direction & Styling: Joseph Cheng
Art Direction: Nadia Aswardy
Makeup: Jenn Teh
Hair: Juno Ko
Styling Assistants: Sarah Chong, Yang Sophia
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