Home no longer feels certain. The ground shifts. Safety feels conditional. In an accelerated and fractured world, I find myself returning to one quiet question: where is home now?
For me, it begins in Nepal.
In Devbhumi, the land of the gods, faith, ritual and daily life coexist without hierarchy. Temples, monasteries, catholic hymns and Sufi music share the same air. The sacred is not ornamental; it is protection, structure, survival. I remember nuns embroidering lace while singing edelweiss through the corridors of my school. I remember temple bells, monks’ chants and shamans’ drums on the walk home. None of it felt contradictory. It felt expansive. It felt magical.
I am not nostalgic. I do not look back to linger. I look back to remember who I was when I needed resilience.
This collection begins with that discipline.
The opening looks resemble uniforms. Sharply tailored suits with high collars and controlled lines that gently hold the body. My interpretation of what my own uniform might have been. A quilted black duffle coat inspired by a nun’s habit and a shaman’s ritual dress follows, protective and grounded. Resilience often begins with structure.
Then memory softens the line.
I think of the women I grew up watching. Demure in their saris until they hitched them up to dance or to take a stand. There was power in that gesture. Freedom within form. Movement within restraint. That was my first lesson in silhouette. This season is an ode to those women.
Lace, guipure and chantilly appear as strength rather than ornament, drawn from both catholic ceremony and sari tradition. In both places, delicacy was not fragility. It was power practised gently. Here, lace becomes a second skin.
Chiffon and silk drape and tuck instinctively. Skirts layer over trousers. Tailoring loosens at the waist. Collars soften. Seams curve and encircle rather than cut. Masculine precision meets feminine fluidity, creating silhouettes that feel intimate and quietly assured.
The palette deepens into charcoal, midnight, amber, sapphire and ink, finding beauty in shadow rather than spectacle. For a long time, i attached hope to primary colours, bold declarations of certainty. As those symbols began to feel shaken, I turned toward depth instead. In a time that encourages cynicism, choosing beauty feels deliberate.
This collection finds beauty in complexity.
In that darkness, a flower appears.
I have always been drawn to the anemone, the wind flower, especially the ones created by Matisse at the Met, my New York sanctuary. It is delicate yet survives in the open air. It holds darkness at its centre, as if memory refuses to be erased. Perhaps that is what home is. Not perfection, but resilience. A beauty shaped by weather. The anemone blooms after rupture. In a world that fractures easily, it becomes an act of quiet resistance. It refuses to wilt under pressure. It insists on colour.
A trench coat in crushed jacquard, rendered in a restrained mint tone and scattered with small forget-me-nots, carries another quiet gesture. A reminder not to forget. Not history. Not tenderness. Not one another. Memory itself becomes resistance.
The mystical quality of Nepal continues to guide this work. Magic, for me, is not illusion. It is protection. It is a belief. It is carrying something sacred into the ordinary.
Feathers hover around the final silhouettes, creating atmosphere rather than fantasy. Draped silks absorb light. Velvet in sapphire, midnight and deep violet carries ceremony. Quilting recalls hand-stitched blankets from boarding school. Every texture carries memory.
Craft spans continents. Lace from France. Wools from Italy. Textiles from Japan. Embroidery from India. Knits from Nepal. Each piece assembled in New York by immigrant hands who crossed oceans believing in the possibility. Beauty here is collaborative, shaped by many worlds.
Home, sweet home is not nostalgia. It is a search for sanctuary in uncertainty. Strength in softness. Hope in shadow.
If angels in America was a hymn of hope, the book of magic is a rite of healing.
Perhaps that is what home has always been. Not a guarantee of safety, but a teacher of endurance. A place that teaches you how to soften without surrendering.
In uncertain times, I choose beauty. Not brightness for distraction, but beauty rooted in memory, discipline and care.
This collection is my offering. Not perfection, but persistence. Not spectacle, but intention. A prayer for tomorrow. A thousand prayers stitched into form.
Happy love day.