Uprising: Irene Lily Philip Cooks When She Can and Dances Whenever Possible

“The kid who was always up to something,” Irene Lily Phillip had an adventurous childhood; playing with friends, “living wild in the not-so-wild outdoors, making things with my hands and hoarding books at the school library,” as she puts it. From a young age, literature caught her eye and made her keen to learn more, but her other hobbies kept her rather busy too. From that point, her curiosity grew into a love of stories and she tried her hand at writing her own thoughts in numerous diary entries. In her adult life, looking back on her thoughts, this was the first indication of Irene’s current career path.

At a young age, however, her bookworm tendencies didn’t mean she was tied to literature; Irene was into sports, music, dance and the arts too. “You could put me on a track and challenge me to a sprint, or throw me on a football field and tell me to go long,” she says, while also reflecting on her hopes of being in a girl band with her friends. With her varied set of interests, Irene thanks the “multicultural community” she grew up in, as this shaped her ability to “learn to appreciate the differences and the similarities in everything.” As a South Asian growing up in the Middle East in the ‘90s, multiculturalism certainly impacted her worldview and influenced the way she sees things. 

With her interest in the arts, it’s not a surprise that Irene studied fashion design and technology, beginning her creative career as a textile designer at a fashion house and apparel company. It was from this point that an editor approached her to do a feature and she began her journey into writing, creating a piece for a magazine. “This experience reinforced what my English teachers had said to me through school: ‘start writing’. From there on, I joined a fashion e-commerce business which was the formal, full-time leap into content creation, writing and production,” says Irene. 

When she was in textiles, Irene worked on her first professional project, “designing for a line of bed linens, which thankfully turned out profitable for the company I was working with.” But it was in Marie Claire where the aspiring copywriter wrote her first fashion feature, “The task required me to use my design/styling abilities to come up with a look and curate a collection in partnership with a designer store, and style a flat lay shoot with a photographer within the day, and return everything back to the store, and start on writing this piece.” Through the process, both her writing and fashion experience were in perfect balance to allow her to conceptualise and curate her writing during what she describes as “an invigorating experience.”

During these first experiences, Irene learnt the most useful lesson that, “Being nice is just as important as being good at your job,” she says, reflecting on the most useful lesson she’s learnt so far. As someone who continues to learn and develop from every task, she says her skills are still “a work in progress.” Because of this, she spends her time listing, reading and subscribing to everything that catches her attention, spreading her hobbies far and wide. Within the industry, being a sponge is perhaps the easiest way to not only stay fresh on new aspects of craft but also allow growth to take place at a much faster pace, which is the path Irene has chosen.

“I’ve been fortunate to be able to work on projects of all scales and forms, but one that is particularly important and fulfilling for me is a campaign we did for Energizer Japan,” Irene says. Perhaps the most significant campaign she worked on, this particular spot was part of the effort to both create awareness and increase sales for Energizer Lights during disaster season in Japan. She says, “We zeroed in on manga as the best approach to appeal to our target audience there. So there started my story development process with my assistant creative director and art team. The outcome was a seven-chapter digital manga called ‘Let There Be Light’, which was translated to Japanese, and starred Mr. Energizer and friends.” Part of what made this significant is that as a result, the brand became the second most trusted in the region, “and increased their market share to 17%, with over 200,000 readers and a reach of over 20 million.”