PVLF 2026

Interview: Shefalee Vasudev , Author of "Stories We Wear"

Author Shefalee explores how clothing reflects identity, power, and social structures in India. In this interview, she discusses the ideas and observations behind Stories We Wear.
on Mar 11, 2026

Frontlist: What inspired you to explore Indian society through clothing, and when did you first realise that style carries powerful, unspoken stories?

Shefalee: I didn’t arrive at clothing as a subject through inspiration so much as accumulation. And it is not only about clothing. Years of reporting on the intersections of fashion and identity made it impossible to ignore how appearance impacts and controls Indian social life, who is taken seriously, who is mistrusted, who is allowed authority. I realised early on during my work as editor of Marie Claire India in the mid-2000s, that style in India is rarely

frivolous; it carries caste, gender, region, aspiration and anxiety, without such aspects clearly spoken about. Stories We Wear grew out of noticing how much is

communicated through several signals of appearance and how little we acknowledge its power.

Frontlist: The book moves through spaces as varied as cremation grounds, coffee shops, airports, and political arenas. How did you choose these settings, and what do they reveal about identity in India?

Shefalee: The settings emerged organically from writing a wide variety of stories over the years in news and lifestyle media and through lived observation. I wrote several investigative reports and cover stories during my stint at India Today newsmagazine before I began fashion writing. The spaces you mention are those where identity is most visible and most

vulnerable, where it is tested. Where human beings are interpreted, regulated or ritualised. Cremation grounds, airports, coffee shops or political arenas reveal how identity in India is shaped by context, scrutiny and expectation (seldom just of the person in question). Clothing, in these moments, becomes a language through which many responses--dignity, gender perplexities or resistance are negotiated.

Frontlist: You write with both a journalist’s observation and a storyteller’s sensitivity. How did you balance research with personal narrative while writing this book?

Shefalee: I approached the book as a journalist’s attempt at narrative non-fiction, anchoring each chapter in observation, interviews, facts and context. The

personal narrative enters only where it sharpens the enquiry, not where it decorates it. I was careful that subjectivity didn’t replace evidence, but instead revealed how the social world is encountered and felt. For me, storytelling was a way to communicate research without flattening its human complexity.

Frontlist: In the book, clothing often becomes a political statement or a deliberate absence. Why do you think appearance plays such a crucial role in power, status, and visibility today?

Shefalee: Appearance has always been central to power, but its role has intensified in modern Indian culture which is influenced by visibility and surveillance. Clothing becomes a way to announce authority, signal networking and reach, or manipulate and manage scrutiny, especially in public life. Equally, the refusal to dress up in a certain way or the choice of real restraint can be a political act,

asserting humility or a certain kind of distance. In a society as stratified as India, appearance often determines who is seen, what markers are associated with

what is worn, and whose presence is read as “credible”.

Frontlist: As someone who has shaped fashion journalism in India, how has your understanding of style evolved over the years, from Marie Claire India to The Voice of Fashion?

Shefalee: I have come to see style less as trend or something seasonal and episodic and more as social evidence. Over time, from my Marie Claire days and then reporting for newspapers like The Indian Express and then Mint Lounge, it became a way to examine power, labour and visibility. Today it is a primary tool, a prism for me to ask and explore who produces culture, who controls it, and who is left out of the frame.

Frontlist: Your work now also includes narrative psychotherapy. Did this influence the way you listened to people’s stories and interpreted their relationship with clothing?

Shefalee: Yes, it did. Narrative

therapy changed how I listen, I became more attuned to meaning. It made me attentive to how reclamation of multiple stories in an individual’s life, including forgotten ones help position them in the world: to claim dignity, manage shame, or assert belonging. This approach shaped how I interpreted appearance not as surface expression, but as part of how people make sense of their lives within society.

Frontlist: What do you hope readers take away from Stories We Wear, especially those who may never look at everyday clothing in the same way again?

Shefalee: I hope readers see that the book is not just about clothing, but about appearance as lived experience language, posture, gender, how we mourn or celebrate. Clothing opens the conversation, but the book is really about how identity and meaning are negotiated in everyday life.