B’luru entrepreneur pays tribute to iconic women

Kadambari Misra dresses up like famous artists, singers, and queens, creating costumes from old sarees, jackets and household objects

What would Mexican painter Frida Kahlo do with a closet full of saris? A random thought, it prompted Kadambari Misra from Bengaluru to reinterpret the looks of iconic women from different eras. These looks are now part of a photo project on her Instagram account.

An entrepreneur, Misra kicked off the project in 2018 by dressing up as Kahlo, retaining her unmistakable flowers-on-braided hair, chunky neckpiece and unibrow look, replacing only the embroidered Mexican blouse with a colourful Kanjeevaram sari. Since then, she has reprised the style of more painters and musicians and, most recently, rulers.

Frida Kahlo

The project, she says, is a tribute to iconic women, some of whom we know and some of whom we haven’t discovered. It’s also a culmination of Misra’s twin interests — history and styling.

But how does she choose from so many unsung women through the ages? “There are two filters. The women must make a statement with their style and their story. For instance, Nur Jahan wasn’t any other Mughal ruler. She was a designer too and she contributed to the art and culture scene immensely,” says Misra, who curates these women, writes their stories and puts together the costume with things in her wardrobe and around the home while Vijetha Karthik does the makeup.

Queen Genepil of Mongolia

The backstory lends heft to this DIY project, lifting it above run-of-the-mill fashion shoots. Take the case of Genepil. She was the last queen consort of Mongolia, who was shot dead five months pregnant during a political violence. “It seems ironic that the costumes of the powerful Queen Amidala of ‘Star Wars’ were inspired by the royal clothes worn by Genepil. A story of redemption perhaps; of returning to Genepil the power that was hers by right,” Misra wrote on Instagram, also revealing that she used agarbatti holders, feathers, velvet, paper straws, plastic pearls, a wooden printing block and a pooja bell to make Genepil’s headgear.

From her series on musicians, her take on the rare photo of Indian classical singer MS Subbulakshmi posing in a men’s pyjama with an unlit cigarette dangling from her lips got everybody talking. “This was in the 1930s when she was young. She sneaked into a photo studio in Chennai with a girl, who would also go on to become a legend, Bharatnatyam dancer Balasaraswati. They broke stereotypes,” Misra says.

In the same series, you will find Misra playing Malian singer-activist Fatoumata Diawara, English icon Amy Winehouse whose “songs were her life poured out in words and music”, and Alisha Chinai, who gave us “our first taste of westernised pop music” and who was unapologetically stylish, “borrowing from Madonna, wearing a blonde wig and being sexy”.

Among the painters, Misra has essayed the pioneer of modern Indian art Amrita Shergil and her characteristic gaze. Also, Yayoi Kusama from Japan, who’s known for covering her art in infinite dots as she is known for sporting red wig and red lipstick. She has also dressed up as American artist Georgia O’Keeffe in a sun hat. She finds O’Keeffe’s paintings of giant flowers evocative as she says, “Later in life, she started living in New Mexico, going deeper into the desert, cutting off from the world, observing every flower. That’s a lesson in slowing down.”

Misra did not know that her admiration for Kahlo would snowball into a series but now that it has, she wants to keep at it. In the coming weeks, she will drop her tribute to Persian princess Qajar, Mesopotamian ruler Pu'Abi, Chinese empress Dowager Cixi, and Nur Jahan, who is thought to be the real mind behind Jahangir’s throne.

You can view the photo project on Instagram accounts, the.jewelbug or vijethakarthik