The Dress Circle

From her initial experiments with clothes to her current Jekyll and Hyde relationship with them, publisher Chiki Sarkar examines how her sartorial choices have given her an identity, comfort, and freedom.

I’VE NEVER QUITE GROWN UP WHEN IT COMES TO FASHION. It still feels like dress-up. Like most little girls, the dressing up started early. At seven and eight, I was raiding my aunt’s vast makeup collection with my twin, Bhuku, and cousin, Phulti, and smearing lipsticks on myself. Then the experimenting began on our many Barbie dolls. I still remember some of those clothes—they were more beautiful than anything I’d ever had. A silver riding jumpsuit with tassels, a gem-coloured Oscar de la Renta brocade gown, hot pink miniskirts worn with neon green tube tops…

Then, as we got to being pre-teens, we began to experiment on ourselves. My twin and I would get our tailor to tighten and shorten our uniform skirts, and make the shirts extra blousy so they’d fall better. We were thrilled to discover that our teachers had nicknamed us ‘The Sexy Sarkars’. In the grungy ’90s, we moved to boys’ clothes. I was especially proud of the ugly black schoolboy shoes I bought myself. We were sulky teens who felt out of place in their city, and our clothes had become a way to stand out.