Meet the MUUZ: Syrienna

Syrienna Wants You to Ask What She Knows, Not Who She Knows.

By: Ella Powell

This week, I spoke to London-raised model, influencer and poet Syrienna about her life and career so far. Scouted at university during COVID, Syrienna discovered a love for modelling in her spare time between online classes. This eventually led her to influencing. She told us, ‘After years of modelling, I realised I also wanted to involve myself in a space that valued my words and personality rather than just my image.’ The creator explained that this “naturally transcended into sharing content surrounding my personal style, heritage and poetry!”. 

Her interest in poetry began when her mum was ill. She explained that ‘writing poetry was a route to maintaining a connection with her in moments where common conversation felt heavy and shared silence, profound’. She would write poetic stories and read them to her mum, bringing them both joy and a sense of tranquillity through a difficult time. Like many young women, Syrienna spoke to us about how her mother’s praise instilled a sense of pride in her that became ‘addicting’.

Syrienna started sharing poetry online but admitted to worrying about being labelled ‘cringe’ by mutual friends and people she knew. She even recalled that she ‘actually heard negative comments being made by people [she] loosely knew’. However, rather than letting this discourage her, she explained that it ‘ironically fuelled a passion to share [her] work even more’.

When Syrienna lost her mum, she ‘lost her world’. This inspired her to write further poems, which she describes as being ‘centred around hope and making sense of existence’. In a world where this kind of reflection can feel entirely lacking from our algorithms, she explained that, despite not caring about virality, she saw ‘a growing audience resonate with them’.

Syrienna draws inspiration from nature and has spoken before about how, when she is around trees, ‘she never feels lonely amidst their company’. She reflects on ‘the conversations they’ve overheard and the tears they’ve watched people weep, proposals, smiles, grief’. Aside from nature, she finds comfort in the silences she shares with her mother at home.

We spoke to Syrienna about the parasocial nature of sharing your life on social media, particularly something as intimate as poetry. She told us she ‘wouldn’t want to create content if it didn’t open the doors to honest connection’. She also explained, ‘It would be hypocritical of me to exercise a part of myself online that isn’t reflected in my day-to-day. I’m making a real effort to inject my physical world with more intimacy and thus, beauty.’

Her motto is to let intuition guide her in deciding what she feels comfortable sharing. Although she keeps her ‘family life, schedule and day-to-day’ close to her chest, she finds it rewarding and impactful to share her ‘poetry and representing [her] heritage and personal style’.

One thing about Syrienna is that she is rarely spotted without her bindi, so we asked her about the history of wearing one and what it means to her. She told us that her mum always wore one and that, from her ‘earliest memories, the bindi was a key part of [her] life’. She began wearing one every day at around 17, initially because of her mum, but later ‘came to understand the bindi as something far more meaningful than an adornment’. She is drawn to its connection with the Ajna Chakra, or third eye, and resonates with its symbolism of intuition and inner wisdom. As she explained, ‘Over time, [her] bindi has become a small expression of [her] belief[s]’.

We asked her what she thinks about South Asian fashion and beauty having a huge moment in mainstream culture, with Indian label LOVEBIRDS making its official debut on the LFW S/S27 schedule. She told us that she thinks it’s amazing. As a child, she was ‘often made to feel self-conscious about [her] roots in subtle ways, and there was so little representation in mainstream media to counter those messages’.

She channels her heritage through the way she dresses, her previously mentioned bindi, which she wears every day, and through food. She eats freshly cooked Indian food every night she spends at home and loves that this is a way to experience her culture every day.

To finish, we asked her some quick-fire questions. She told us that the thing she could talk about forever was conspiracy theories, with her current fixation being Antarctica. She spoke of the ‘exhilaration in entertaining the unexplained’. Her favourite poem is ‘If—’ by Rudyard Kipling. She told us that she ‘hop[es] [she] can say [she] became a pillar of the values it so beautifully describes’ by the end of her life.

Her closing message to us was beautiful and perfectly captured the eloquence of her writing and the intellectual curiosity she possesses. We asked her, ‘What do you wish people were more curious about when they meet you?’

She replied beautifully: ‘What I know, not who I know.’

That sums up our chat with Syrienna. If you haven’t already, you should check out her social media: @syrienna on Instagram and @syrienna_ on TikTok. She’s this week’s MUUZ and our number-one stop for channelling creativity and intellectualising our algorithms. And she has amazing outfits!