Fashion

Jyoti Gokani, designer Krishna Mehta’s sister, in her shop in the Colaba district of Mumbai. From Better Living Through Artistry.

Our clothes are coats of armor, bespoke uniforms that cocoon us from—and catapult us into—the world at large. Blending in, standing out, stepping out, tuning in: where can fashion take us? Who can fashion make us? From decoding luxury and understanding craft, to consumerism, collaboration, and love affairs with cotton, this is social history writ large: an animated (and mediated) language of custom and system, access and sustainability, style, soul, and artistry. At turns whimsical, adaptive (and increasingly proactive), clothing is the material proof of all that’s human and hopeful. Fashion, after all, has always been the stuff of fantasy, and what’s wrong with a little fantasy?