Post a visit to the British Museum’s ‘Feminine Power: The Devine to the Demonic.’ I was inspired by the multicultural depiction of women and how it has shaped society. I found a book at the museum’s bookstore about dark magic. I then drew inspiration from the practice of witchcraft and the cultural portrayal of witches in western history. The women accused of being witches, were often those who resisted improvement and social exclusion. While some women indeed practiced ritualistic sacrifices, most of the accused were often healers. For this collection, I based my research and design development on Act 1 of ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller. Based on the Salem Witch trials and witch-hunting in Massachusetts, the play is a work of fiction yet portrays the wickedness that caused innocent women to be defamed and then murdered for supposed practices of witchcraft.

This is a collection is a collaboration between Ishani Nandamuri and Moncler, a brand known for its protective clothing and puffer down jackets. This collaboration created a collection of feminine yet protective utilitarian clothing to shield women against misogyny and power structures that have determined their place in society. Through this collection, I want to replace the negative connotation of the term ‘witch’ to create a mood and garments that are beautiful, haunting, yet sensual and lustful in its approach.

I bring in the choice of fabrics from Moncler’s use of down for its puffer jackets, however I added lace (that I took inspiration from a voodoo doll) as an overlay to create a contrast between protective versus delicate fabrics.  I created numerous experiments with wadding to test out different shapes and silhouettes. The final lineup has a common element of drawstrings to create oversized, exaggerated silhouettes which is characteristic of Ishani Nandamuri. Besides lace and wadding, the garments also comprise of black and white Silk Mikado fabrics and a black Cupro lining on the inside.

Sticking to a noir color palette, the jet-black lace overlay above the snow-white wadding, creates a silvery finish. The final lineup comprises of 6 looks with a range of different garments including outerwear jackets, dresses, skirts, pants, tops, and bodysuits giving countless possibilities to style them. The outcome comprises of an outerwear jacket ‘Lepidopetra’ and a baby doll dress, ‘Chrysalis’ underneath. The names translate to ‘A caterpillar turned butterfly because of the way the jacket is shaped. The jacket has two layers and a double zip opening at the Centre Front. It has snaps so it can either be worn fully-zipper or with the top layer as a train instead. The baby doll dress underneath comprises of an extra-large collar detail with flared lace sleeves and drawstring on the hem and side seam. Together, the two garments create a bewitching, pearlescent silver look for the collection.