Who’s up for some BTS coverage from the entire journey of my limited edition jewelry collection Shehr with India Trend? *raising both hands because no one else is* :O

I hadn’t really planned on doing a behind-the-scenes action kind of post and so most of these images are random phone shots that I was sending to Nabeel or my sister or Sidra (from @therajalife) who was my sounding board for everything related to this collection. But then I thought it would be fun to kind of go back and also talk about how I planned this whole thing out, so shall we? Aa jao.

Going back to that WhatsApp message in October that started it all 🙂 Parul reached out to me and knowing her work ethic and having experienced her product first-hand (because we’d done a tiny little collab before this) it took me 2 seconds to say yes! let’s explore this.

My first email to Parul about my vision and design likes for the collection. After lots of research and going over in my head about exactly what kind of collection I wanted, things I’d love wearing myself, what each piece should represent, how they could be paired, how many earrings or necklaces should there be, I got back to Parul with some thoughts, lots of inspiration images, some ideas from old jewelry in my own personal collection, etc etc.

Final product images. And after some back and forth spread over many weeks, she got back to me with the final pieces for a collection that had so far existed only on paper. It was so surreal to see those images, you guys, I literally kept scrolling through them over and over, heh. We hit ‘done’ on them and Parul got ready to ship them to me.

The day the collection was delivered. Within a week, all the pieces had arrived and they were GORGEOUS. This picture was one of the many where I modeled each piece and sent to my sister (who was SO proud of me, I love her) and Sidra (who was just as ecstatic as me, I love her also). After trying each piece out over several days (to test for comfort, how they tied at the back, how they set against my neck or ear for example) I sent Parul some tweaks, she finalized them all like a queen, and we were ready.

Prepping moodboards. Once the pieces were with me, I started prepping for the shoot. I just knew I wanted flowy clothes for the pictures so I ordered two pieces in from Bunaai. And while I waited for my delivery to come through, I made super basic moodboards to match the pieces with the outfits. I have to tell you, if there was one person who listened to me blab about options for clothes non-stop for days on end, it was Sidra. She was my angel of sense when my brain got too foggy after looking at too many online stores, who would offer her expert styling advice when I’d ask for recos on which pieces went with which outfit, what makeup to do, hair, everything. She was with me throughout. (Also, see my moodboard had combinations that I actually ended up swapping once the clothes arrived, so interesting that you can plan your best but changes keep happening till the last moment)

The clothes delivery. Finally my clothes arrived as well and I quickly booked Nabeel in for the coming weekend to do shots in at least one outfit (we are amateurs and I knew we’d take long to photograph). I matched the pieces once again with the clothes and ended up switching the ones I had thought would go together. We lined up how much could be shot in one day and done done.

Location scouting. Before the shoot itself, Nabeel and I went location scouting for where we could take potential shots. We identified places we liked, where the light fell nicely, what backdrops seemed to let the jewelry stand out. This is me dummy modeling at this spot that we actually never used in the end cos of lighting probz.

One of my favorite pictures from this whole process is this one where Nabeel went into a spot to show what it would look like if framed in a shot. I was tired and wanted to go home at that point, but he thought it could be a great option to test. When I refused, he said he’d go in my place and I could see how it looked in the camera. And when I said that he was taller than me and that changes picture proportions, he bent down and posed like a cutesy model, lol.

First shoot day. This was from Day 1 of the shoot. It took us about 3 hours to do a few pieces and towards the end the wind had gone so crazy, we literally could not take any pictures without my clothes flying everywhere and hair all in my face. But it was such fun, we came back home very, very happy.

Naming the collection and pieces. While waiting to do the rest of the shoot over another weekend, I did some conceptual work like figuring out what I wanted to name the collection and the individual pieces. Because of Parul and my own dad’s shared history between India and Pakistan, I just knew I wanted it to be thematically representative of that as well (and not just in our hearts). The idea of doing each piece by a city had been coming to me constantly since I started work on this and one day I sat down and started listing the places that meant something to me. I had printed out a picture of each piece and you guys, you won’t believe, it felt like the pieces were calling out those names to me. It’s like they all owned those cities themselves. I scribbled them down, let them sit for a few days and then when I went back to relook at the name-piece pairing, it was purrrfect.

Location scouting, second shoot. After a gap of some weeks, we did Day 2 of our shoot. Went location scouting again and narrowed down some spots. It was macchar season and I think I didn’t realise but already some were coming for me during the day (beautifully captured in this picture) 😀

This was a test shot of the spot where I took this picture. I found it while we were figuring out spaces to shoot in and I instantly fell in love with this one, I think I should go back and get another picture? Ok.

Shoot Day 2, preps underway. There’s lots to prep for if you’re shooting outside your home and also want to be efficient with time because you’re essentially chasing light. I did all the things to structure the process, lined up all pieces in the order they had to be photographed in, got ready, packed our bag (including all essentials so we didn’t forget anything, that would have been a nightmare).

Photographer and model much happy after doing one outfit and going back home to change into another outfit.

This third outfit got done around maghrib time and my god you guys, the mosquitoes ate us up alive. I look happy in the final pictures but please understand that I had been borderline tortured on this day, lol.

Image edits and lookbook finalisation. We had to fly to Pakistan just a few days after the second shoot. I had so much work to wrap up before flying that I could only edit the images on the plane. So this right here was my makeshift office on our flight from Sydney to Karachi with some coffee on the side.

After getting back home from Pakistan, we locked down the official date of launch, I got the social media visuals ready, and just four days ago, I was able to bring to you my limited edition collection called Shehr with India Trend 🙂

Hope you guys enjoyed the BTS. You can view the official lookbook for the collection right here and if you’d like to shop the pieces, you can go right here.