India's first hair & make up reality web series

Lakmé Academy powered by Aptech (LAPA), one of the leading beauty training institutes in India, has launched 'Winged' - India's first Hair and makeup reality web series in collaboration with MTV India offering an exclusive platform to the hair and makeup aspirants across the country, to showcase their talent and win the title as India's first Hair & Make-up superstar.

Bijal Chavda, one among the many contestants and now winner of this title will be the brand ambassador of Lakmé Academy for a year and will be groomed & trained to be a digital influencer.

Lakmé Academy powered by Aptech, together with MTV India organised a pan India, college outreach program touching nearly 16500 beauty & make-up aspirants over a period of 3 months. Top 15 shortlisted candidates were trained by the experts at Lakmé academy and the final shortlisting of 10 contenders were introduced to the stage of 'Winged'.

Lakmé Academy collaborated with MTV to create an intellectual property called Winged. Winged is a weekly 6 web- episode series capturing the journey of above 10 contestants battling it out to win the ultimate crown as India's first Hair & Make-up superstar.

The first web episode aired on 6th of December 2019 crossed eight hundred fifty thousand views followed by collectively 5.6 million views and counting. Every web episode was uniquely challenged to explore different styles of make-up, including Bollywood divas, Indian Brides belonging to different cultures, music genres, cos-play etc.

There were eliminations after every episode and 3 out of the 10 contenders had secured a place in the finale. The finale aired on Friday 10th Jan 2020 witnessed Bijal Chavda from Mumbai earning the title as India's first 'hair and make-up superstar'on Winged series.

The host for the show was Gaelyn Mendonca and mentoring and guiding the contestants were the judges – Pushkaraj Shenai, the CEO of Lakmé Lever, Anupma Katiyal, National Creative Director at Lakmé salon and Model Actor and VJ, Sushant Divgikar who also represented India in Mr. Gay World 2014. For episode 2nd and 3rd, actor Preetika Rao also mentored the contestants as a judge on the show.

Talking about the overwhelming response received for Winged, Mr Pravir Arora, Chief Marketing Officer, Aptech Ltd said, "The Indian beauty market, which was valued at $6.5 billion in 2017, is expected to exceed $20 billion by 2025. This industry is seeing rapid strides and is highly employable.

We are thrilled and very proud to be releasing our first reality web series - 'Winged' powered by MTV India. This is a 6 episode show that challenges aspiring hair and makeup artists, grooms and evaluates them and takes them on the best professional journey they could ever dream of. The winner gets to be 'the brand ambassador of Lakmé academy' for a year. This could change their life."

Sushant Divgikar, Indian model, performer, VJ & drag queen said, "As a judge on Winged Series, I wanted the contestants to come out of their comfort zone, to make them go over-the-top with their craft if they had to and I could see that fire in them to be the best. Being an influencer and someone who puts on make-up every day, I had a great time mentoring the young beauty aspirants on Winged."

Pushkaraj Shenai, CEO, Lakmé Lever, said "The quality standard and expectations from the contestants were really high, and we loved to see how each of them took effort to make their model look stunning and beautiful, tried to be innovative with the detailing and stayed positive despite the pressure."

Anupma Katiyal, National Creative Director at Lakmé salon said, "This is the first time that a show like this has come up where aspiring hair & make-up artists are given the centre stage, otherwise these people, are always behind the scenes.

We at Lakmé Academy are happy to train these aspirants and excited to be a part of their journey. Winged as a platform would literally offer wings accelerating their career ahead by a decade."

Lakmé Academy Powered by Aptech won the Global Education Awards 2019 for 'The Best Beauty & Wellness Training Institute of the Year'. Aptech Ltd which was also awarded with "Skill Learning Award - Beauty Training" by Franchise India in 2018.