Interior designer Victoria Fernandes’ journey is a story of career, culture, and the courage to begin again
Five years ago, Victoria Fernandes arrived in Goa from Belarus, during the peak of the pandemic, as a wife. She had married Ryan Fernandes of ThinkBig Advertising. A new family, a new country, a new language, and new rhythm of life; everything was unfamiliar. She had expected adaptation. But she did not expect transformation.
What she could not predict then was that this move would quietly open the door to a completely new identity. What began as relocation became the start of a reinvention of identity.
Goa wrapped Victoria in its warm, slow, sunlit embrace. It wasn’t just a place to live; it became a place that changed her. Goa’s Indo-Portuguese colonial houses and estates, tropical textures, and its multicultural charm, ignited in her something she hadn’t felt before: an urge to express herself creatively. She took to painting in the beginning, something she hadn’t indulged in since school. Doing lush landscapes in water colours and acrylic colours, and gifting them to her newly formed friends and family. Needless to say, they were thrilled to receive these personalised gifts.
Her husband introduced her to heritage homes, structures filled with history, arches, courtyards, and soul; with every visit, something inside her stirred. She didn’t understand it then, but the feeling grew stronger until it became impossible to ignore.
From HR to Design: The shift she didn’t see coming
Before Goa, her world was HR management and career coaching. For over a decade she had lived in the realm of people; their motivations, strengths, struggles, and decisions. She loved that work. It gave her emotional intelligence, behavioural insight, organizational logic, and the ability to lead change.
She didn’t realize these were also the foundations of design. Her entry into the world of interior design was almost accidental, or maybe beautifully intentional.
It started quietly: a soft touch added to her mother-in-law’s home, then a tiny-budget redesign of her husband’s office during Covid, and later her own apartment.
She thought she was simply helping. But her family saw something else. They noticed how she didn’t just arrange objects, she shifted the energy of a space. Those early rooms became her silent portfolio, built with love and zero expectations. 
Finding her Voice
Goa and India were a world apart from Victoria’s earlier life in Belarus. The way people worked here, the way they responded to instructions; it was all new, and at times frustrating for somebody with a European efficiency and aesthetic sense.
But instead of seeing these as obstacles, she treated them the way she once treated leadership challenges: as information. She observed. She learned. She adapted.
Slowly, India’s textures, colours, and contrasts became part of her creative DNA.
She wasn’t trying to become local, she was becoming her own version of designer; one shaped by cross-cultural experience.
When passion takes over
In the last two years, with constant support from her family, especially from her brother-in-law, Keith Fernandes, and her husband, Ryan; Victoria’s world expanded. She completed 8 design projects of differing scales, including her own dream tropical home in Thivim. Three of these projects shaped her deeply.
A Portuguese Villa in Parra – One month that changed everything
An old villa in Parra felt like destiny. It was dark, tired, heavy, but full of soul.
Her philosophy was simple: preserve the story, elevate the life inside it.
She opened up the spaces with light, mapped colours to highlight the original contours, layered textures for comfort, kept the structure almost untouched, and reused as much as she could. She wanted the home to breathe again; not as a museum piece, but as a lived-in, warm, Mediterranean-Goan space.
And she did it in one month. It was the project where she finally said to herself, “Yes. This is who I am now. An interior designer!”
Designing Energy: The Four Slipdisc and Gracia Offices
While the villa taught her heritage, the corporate offices taught her strategy.
She built the entire concept around elemental forces; a Goan way of interpreting energy. 
The Ocean – Strategy
The CEO and admin office is in deep blue, symbolizing clarity, depth, calm power.
The Field – Growth
Grounding greens for the sales team, representing opportunity and expansion.
Fire – Passion
Red for the training room – the colour of ambition, learning, and transformation.
Gracia – Flame and Identity
Warm terracotta for the brand office; creativity, authenticity, inner spark.
It was the first time she fused her HR understanding of people and culture with her emerging design voice. And it felt natural.
What reinvention really taught her
Reinvention isn’t glamorous when one is in the thick of it. It is confusing, humbling, silent, and sometimes scary. But on the other side, it becomes clarity.
Here’s what she learnt. She learnt that skills travel with us, even across entirely different industries, and that curiosity often proves more powerful than confidence. She discovered that doing the work matters far more than collecting certificates, and that cross-cultural intelligence is a true superpower.
She realized that starting over doesn’t erase experience, it elevates it. And above all, she learned that ambition has no age limit. Design didn’t replace her past. It expanded it. Today, she see spaces the way she once saw people: full of story, energy, potential, and transformation. 
Where she stands now
Each new passion project feels like another chapter in a book she had never planned to write; but now cannot imagine her life without. Most importantly, none of this would have happened without her family.
Their trust built every foundation. Their belief became her strength. Their love made her journey possible.
