Penmai
Penmai is a celebration of womanhood, the kind that is ubiquitous and relatable. Penmai aims to critique the comparison of women to goddesses and instead represent the women that surround us in all their beautifully mundane glory. Penmai takes the unattainable out of our collective expectations of women and femininity by reinterpreting commonly seen South Indian textiles and ornaments.
Penmai honors the quiet kind of community and traditions that South Asian women share, whether it’s the weekly ritual of oiling and braiding each other’s hair with jasmine or basking in sunlit balconies. The work also tries to represent the multiple realities that women and femmes exist within.
While centering the experience of womanhood, the collection is made for anyone who imagines a future that allows the expansiveness of one’s identity to exist harmoniously with heritage and culture.
Penmai honors the quiet kind of community and traditions that South Asian women share, whether it’s the weekly ritual of oiling and braiding each other’s hair with jasmine or basking in sunlit balconies. The work also tries to represent the multiple realities that women and femmes exist within.
While centering the experience of womanhood, the collection is made for anyone who imagines a future that allows the expansiveness of one’s identity to exist harmoniously with heritage and culture.
This body of work is a celebration as much as it is a critique: it is a journey that examines South Asian womanhood from the outside and then delves into the nuances and bonds that tie us to our identities and to one another.
This body of work is a celebration as much as it is a critique: it is a journey that examines South Asian womanhood from the outside and then delves into the nuances and bonds that tie us to our identities and to one another.
