PS: What's it like working together?
SS: We have the same love for fashion. We came into this as peers and colleagues, and we have grown to be best friends. We keep it real; we're able to teach each other things that we don't know. We're each other's calm in the storm.
HP: We're also 99.9 percent of the time on the same wavelength. There's a lot of times when I'm thinking something and Shipra has already thought it and said it out loud. If there's anything that I don't understand or I'm weak at or need help with, I have that emotional support. To have someone be your business partner but also to be your friend and your support and your guide in life, I've been very fortunate that I have that.
PS: What are some of the challenges you faced while building out SANYFW?
HP: The biggest challenge has been to get the support and get your community to invest in your initiative and in your ideas. To get that level of production, and to bring that quality that is very similar to what is equivalent to New York Fashion Week, that was a big struggle, because we have to really convince a lot of the community members that this is the way to do it. This is the path forward. We self-funded our first and second season with the help of our parents, and we can't thank them enough for that.
SS: With South Asian communities across the globe, we are predominantly very hyper-focused on certain careers and certain trajectories of your career path. The arts, media, fashion, and culture-based careers are not given as much importance, but these fields are actually modes of change for each generation. They're vehicles that help you set trends, that helps elevate these communities, and brings in resources to your community. Hetal and I are very grateful to have parents who supported our creative career paths and pushed us to follow our dreams. Without that support and encouragement we would not have a SANYFW.
PS: What have you learned while creating and executing SANYFW?
HP: We've learned that you don't take criticism from somebody you wouldn't take advice from. We really have learned to channel out the white noise and focus on the issues that we can fix.
SS: We have a board of advisers that became the subject-matter experts of our different verticals, whether it's production, styling, media, finance, public relations, overall business strategy, and marketing. Having that community and network to rely on when things get hard has definitely been the best thing that's come about all of our challenges, and it's taught us that you're really not alone.
Keep scrolling to see the designers featured at South Asian New York Fashion Week.
