Image Source: Samsung
“Love Island” finalist Tasha Ghouri still can’t quite believe strangers recognise her. “I don’t see myself as famous. I just see myself as the same girl that I was [before] I went into the villa,” she tells POPSUGAR. “I think I forget we were on TV for 11 weeks!” Yet Ghouri is well on her way to become the perfect reality TV success story. Not only has she moved in with “Love Island” boyfriend Andrew Le Page, she has continued to raise awareness of the deaf community after referring to her cochlear ear plant as her “superpower”. She’s also fronted an Ann Summers campaign and become an important promoter of preloved shopping thanks to her standout style on the show and partnerships with eBay and, most recently, Samsung.
“I’m trying to break down stigma that it’s embarrassing shopping second hand,” she says. After the reality show partnered with eBay this year and provided the islanders with a wardrobe of preloved clothes, Ghouri relished the opportunity to dress up each day. “I was being creative and outside the box, I was being a bit different, and it really opened my eyes,” she says. “I couldn’t believe the amazing clothes, I was like ‘these were on eBay?’ I genuinely couldn’t get my head around it.”
“I think the best advice is no one else is you, and that’s your biggest power.”
Ghouri was a fan of preloved clothes before the show, with a desire to shop more sustainably and find more unique pieces (she mentions a vintage leather tasseled Diesel jacket as her favourite find), and wants to encourage others to buy and sell their own clothes, too. While selling requires more effort, she passionately urges fashion-lovers to not be put off when uploading items to resale sites. “It’s all about finding the lighting, getting the angles. Obviously, it takes a bit of work to do that, but you can make it fun. You can show how to style it, be more creative with it,” she advises.
While Ghouri’s style was praised on the show, her rollercoaster relationship was scrutinised. Since coupling up with Le Page at the beginning, the pair endured a lot of ups and downs, including a rocky Casa Amor stint, yet made it to the final and have been living happily ever after since. She admits she hasn’t watched any of the series back, only her final date with Le Page, and isn’t ready to live through it all just yet. Instead, she is settling into home life as a couple.
Le Page even made his commitment to her permanent by getting a sign language tattoo. “No other guy’s done that for me before,” she says. “And I think that’s so much more personable and more special. I think that’s much more romantic than getting me something that’s materialistic.”
While she hopes to get into property developing with Le Page in the future and have her own fashion line, raising awareness of the deaf community with her Talks with Tasha Instagram page is a must. “Your super power does not define you. So I think the amount of people that message me, even to this day, say, ‘Thank you. Because of you I can now wear my hair up.’ Or, ‘I can change the colours of my cochlear implant.’ Or, ‘I feel confident to even open up,'” she says. “That gives me the warmth and love, because I just want to make other people happy.”
Like everyone, Ghouri has her down days, but she has become comfortable in her own skin. Although her confidence did not happen overnight as she admits to having a lot of challenges growing up, but she has worked on it over time and, since leaving the villa, has focussed on the positives and not gone looking for the negatives. “I think the best advice is no one else is you, and that’s your biggest power. And it’s so true, because there’s only one of you,” she says. “How many billions of people on this planet? There’s only one of you, and you should love that.”
Find out more tips and tricks for selling your preloved items from Tasha on the Samsung KX Hub here.
