Full interview with Mumbai’s fashion expert Jasmine Dawda
Interview with Jigar Saraswat:-
“As a Fashionist I have the authority to revise the chronological order of the stereotypes, I am sincerely holding personal relationship with slow fashion, repair, recycle, wear and repeat, at this stage of my life”
— Jasmine Dawda
Jasmine Dawda is a woman with razor-sharp intellectual tenets and a cutthroat approach towards stereotypes. Being a model, actress and designer before, she carries a balanced yet exceptionally precise perspective of the fashion scenario on a global scale. With her binoculars, she depicts fashion on a global map as well as in INDIA and the city of dreams Mumbai where she resides currently. It’s been refreshing to sit and have a candid conversation with someone pleasant, and down-to-earth with a chill vibe yet calling spade a spade without beating around the bush. I started talking to her, being slightly hesitant since her reference had come through a social acquaintance who made me prepare to do my groundwork. She walked in at the small cafeteria in Bandra on the sea-side in casual attire “May I ask, who recommended you my name again? Sorry, I forgot since too many tabs have been open in my brain lately” and she took a seat with a zen face and a smile with glowing skin. Added, “I like my skin to breathe when the sun is out, but I do have dark circles so I prefer to keep my glasses on if that’s OK?” I said sure mam, she said call me Jasmine I am no mam. Her aura was intense but serene in some sense. I started on a casual note saying I like what you wearing. She politely reciprocated with a thank you adding well it’s Egyptian cotton cargo pants my ex picked them up for me when he was in Cairo I love Egyptian cotton and a T-shirt I picked up from IRO – a Parisian label started by these two boys in Paris, they expanded well in U.S. They simple but excellent in ripped effect you know it’s an art to make ‘ripped washed out effect’ on clothing. These sliders I picked up from Hill Road they blingy I love bling and I’m a Bandra girl, we chill like that on this side of the hood you see., hehe… With perfect eyebrows, nails and straight hair with clear skin, she glanced at the waiter read his name on a shirt and politely addressed him with his name requesting him to take the order for all-vegan food, avocado toast, and cappuccino with vegan dessert. For me as well as she indicated to try and indulge in the clean taste of vegan delicacies. By then I was getting the indication of the person and what she would bring to this coffee table today.
Starting my fashion talk with her I added so
Where do we start talking about fashion with you?
let’s start with sustainable & slow fashion talk. Andrew Morgan says “What if we started by slowing down and not consuming so much stuff, just because it’s there and cheap and available? It’s amazing how that process makes sense financially, it makes sense ethically, and it makes sense environmentally” he is the filmmaker of ‘The True Cost’ documentary which explores the impact of fashion on people and the planet. As a fashion writer, I do carry micro power to change the world just being careful what I give power to by writing, wearing and buying I feel as a consumer we must know fast fashion isn’t free. Someone, somewhere is making huge sacrifices for our consumption. How can we be so cruel being an educated individual? The conversation started to warm up on an ethical note so I asked her
How do you contribute? As in what do you do when you shop?
I haven’t shopped in 5 years, I fluctuated a lot with my body size since 2019 due to personal and pandemic reasons. But again that opened another horizon for me to reconsider what I had in my wardrobe. I am a collector of clothes, from childhood, I have been a big junkie with collecting things, I have clothes which are 20 years old pieces kept in my wardrobe. Particularly pieces with sentimental values as gifts from my loved ones. So I can tell that I have clothes of all sizes from zero to fourteen,.. that much I have fluctuated. With so much going on with fashion and seasonal collections it’s almost impossible to catch up. I write monthly about seasonal collections of hundreds of brands, local and international so it’s nerve-wracking what is happening out there. It scars me at times this rat race, brands have gotten into in the last 15 years. So I decided that till the time I didn’t go back to my ideal weight, I would recycle, repair and follow a slow fashion with a vegan diet. And now when I followed that for a few years it’s become a lifestyle. I research and study so much daily, it has opened my eyes to what damage we are causing just by wearing a new outfit every time we step out. The planet is getting doomed and animals suffering extensively, the climate is transforming drastically, and nature is devastated with plastic and fashion waste. It breaks my heart to see what rank humanity has reached so one can look fashionable, youthful and happening. Is it even worth the looks and attention we wish to grab? No absolutely not. So I guess whatever circumstances I faced last five years, have opened my eyes to adopt a new approach towards life and carry forward more respectfully towards shopping, so for that I am extremely sensitive with what I bring back home. I have collected so much in the last twenty years that I will always find some trend on fleek from my wardrobe that I will repair, and modify with local tailoring and I am managing with using those items. I won’t say I am the best-dressed girl in town but I try and I am doing well with what I try.
What you think of Bollywood celebrities and fashion
Okay, so don’t get me wrong but I am not a Bollywood or Bombay social fashion fan. Wearing 7 branded pieces from the latest release together and flaunting your apple cheeks of filler faces to paparazzi is so dreadful in my sentiments. Maybe I was somewhere close to that philosophy but that was fifteen years ago when I didn’t know any better and I was still learning. Today I have evolved myself with many distinct cultures of fashion. Going with some friends on exotic holidays or fashion capitals and going out partying and shopping in the best of the malls won’t change your perspective of fashion. When you live in the cities, study culture and local people by educating yourself about one particular niche or motherland, that changes the way you glimpse at fashion and what each classification of brand is doing with their contemporary fashion drop. I believe in one piece or two at a time when you explore fashion. Enhance those items by keeping the rest fully subtle. Unless you attending some brand launch or fashion show and you have been selected as a muse for that designer or a label. You don’t need to wear head-to-toe ten brands in one go and make a circus of your buying capacities by ridiculing them all at once. Bolly celebs sometimes get carried away with their notions of new shopped goodies. When we talk about social circles, it’s another hysteria of cataclysm which is in every cosmopolitan city with too much money and buying capacity transpiring. Bombay socialites are fascinated with colours to the level of providing dizziness from dopamine doses. It’s like Carnival Cougars running a beauty pageant in self-claimed fashion titles throwing parties for each other. It’s outrageous to me how far and lost they look with the sense of styling or fashion. My favourites are two other categories of people, The first one is people – who kept their authentic Indian fashion intact throughout by bringing values to Indian handloom, heritage and century-old artisan curation, I absolutely love those and the second category is boho chic Gen-Z who are buying local brands which are pocket friendly and doing a great job with mix and match. I don’t like ‘Plain Jane’ kind of women, they have no characteristics of fashion, in my opinion, what they buy, wear or do is irrelevant.
When you say you evolved with time, can you elaborate that ?
Yes absolutely, I was no miss perfect back then or even now I wont consider myself as the best. I always say I am a work in progress by all means. I came from a humble background, while growing up I was excellent with extra circular activities and from a very young age I used to win medals and prizes for poetry, debates, painting and many more skills. We used to win prizes with money and vouchers from brands as well. Also used to watch movies and try to make dresses and copy the looks of the actresses many times I used to be a victim of loud criticism but I was known to dress differently. Which was my craft and I worked on that with time and experience. I consider myself very lucky since I grew up in a small town with a simple lifestyle and rituals. My upbringing was ethical and truly sustainable. Because of studying and travelling through many countries and cities I adopted to be modern woman with progressive fashion taste. I feel I am one of those few fortunate people who lived in best of both sides while growing up. Your thinking and your vision will combined the sensibility of both side of the world when you growth is so wide and expanded. I can sit on the floor and enjoy my chai with old granny from a small village and talk about the vegetable prints on her saree as fondly as I will sip on my Dom Pèrignon with Suzy Menkes and talk about the spring-summer collection of GCDS happened in Milano. So you see…, I was fortunate enough to appreciate from that to this. Which makes me hold wider vision when it comes to fashion all around from ground zero to top notch. It’s all part of living life to the fullest and learning to churn out the best from the worst.
What advice you will give us for being fashionable and for the future
Guys please respect ethical fashion. Enjoy brands but support brands which are trying to bring sustainable change. Buy less and repeat more, style it differently, use it more than multiple times, if Kate Middleton can do it, so can you. Focus on health and fitness because that will make you stand out in any crappy clothing you wear or pick. Don’t worry about what men like, real men won’t focus on clothes, they are always curious about what is beneath your layers. Be beautiful inside out and let that radiate more than the bags and shoes you buy. Save up to buy high-end fashion, don’t waste money on fast fashion. Save the planet by doing one sustainable act every week call it soulful Sunday hobby. And always love yourself, self-love will take you places.
Serene and solid is what I can say for Jasmine Dawda. Wishing her the best.., we continued with some more industry talks. And when I tried to poke her with social gossip she whispered “Listen I know you must have heard lots of stories about me, let me tell you without any curiosity or hesitation that whatever you have heard, consider all that being true and after that also you still like me..! Then I shall like you too. Rest I am not bothered. I have bigger things to focus on and my future looks too bright to me” I guess that’s why the sunnies remained ON throughout this coffee meeting.
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