A Fluid Spectrum

Anjali Ameer, Ketaki Narayan and Siddharth Menon blur boundaries and ungender fashion.

- Rheanna Mathews

As I walked into the studio, it struck me how the vast white spaces and exposed beams and wires of the parts of the building under construction seemed to echo the nature of the shoot that was underway – an exploration of the fluidity and flexibility of gender, an examination of this social construct, a deconstruction of the norms and roles associated with it. The team had readied the sets. The designer, known for his collections that question and subvert established notions of gender and beauty, was also waiting, composed and still. A moment of quiet, before the flurry of a full-blown fashion shoot began again. Although at times the models switched terms with utter disregard for academic precision, from dressing room conversations, it was obvious they all thought the time ripe for dialogue on gender. We have been constrained by its apparent binary nature and shackled too long by roles that suffocated. This global innovation in thought caught the imagination of the fashion world which depicted it through design. “Will we manage to portray this fluidity though?”, I ask. To which Alan Alexander Kaleekal replied, “We can only try and do our best. Perhaps initiating the dialogue, drawing the discussion from the fringe