THE WOMAN IN THE ALMIRAH

Fashion artist Sharmila Nair’s new project links women’s emotions during the pandemic to the tradition of parents gifting almirahs to daughter

- Shweta Bhandral

Entrepreneur and fashion art-ist Sharmila Nair’s latest project The Almirah is a fashion art installation that showcases the emotions that Indian women went through during the Covid pandemic. “There’s a tradition in Kerala where the parents gift an almirah to their daughter at the time of her marriage. This almirah becomes her private property, one of her biggest assets that she inherits from her parents, and it stays in her life as a companion with whom she shares her happiness, sadness, fears, insecurities, and secrets,” says Sharmila, who is based in Ernakulum, Kerala. “It is in the same almirah that patriarchal society interferes. The almirah stands as a metaphor for the limited public space women experience in a patriarchal society.”