This week I spent two long days styling a sari for a Lower East Side lookbook, and I keep thinking about it.
The studio was on Ludlow, up a freight elevator that groaned like it had regrets. Concrete floor, big windows, that particular downtown light that makes everything look expensive even when it is thrifted. Which most of my rack was.
The brief was "heritage meets street," which usually makes me roll my eyes, because it usually means someone wants to sell a $400 kurta with zero context. But this time I got to actually build it.
Styling a sari for a Lower East Side lookbook meant I could not do it halfway. I called Nani on video and made her walk me through the Gujarati seedha pallu drape, the one where the pallu comes over the right shoulder to the front. She kept saying I was pinning it wrong. She was right. She is always right.
Then I layered it over a pair of thrifted Levi's from a stoop sale in the East Village, added a beat-up leather jacket, and my heart did a little flip. Because it worked. Ahmedabad and Ludlow Street in one outfit and neither one apologizing.
The model was a girl from Jackson Heights who told me her mother wore saris exactly like this. We both got a little quiet.
The part of styling a sari for a Lower East Side lookbook that nobody warns you about is how emotional it gets. You are not just draping fabric. You are draping your grandmother's hands, your mother's cupboard, six meters of memory.
We shot until the Ludlow light went orange and then blue. The Delancey J train rattled past the window every few minutes like a metronome.
When it was done I texted Nani the photos. She wrote back one line.
"See. I told you the pleats."
You can take the girl out of Gujarat.
Love,