“As a brown girl, I want to take up space,” declares Namita Sunil, model and GRAZIA cover star. Born and raised in the south of India in Kochi, Kerala, Namita always knew she had, as she describes, a “hunger” inside her to see the world outside of her hometown, in particular, through the lens of fashion.

Namita recalls being dressed in “the sweetest frocks and white dresses” as a child, but perhaps there was a yearning to be able to explore more of a personal style. “I grew up in a very conservative Christian household,” she explains. “I did start to rebel as a teenager… wearing ripped jeans and having really emo makeup.” It’s a stage we’ve all been through, for sure.

But for Namita, she explains that growing up in Kerala, she felt like her heritage and culture wasn’t championed enough. “We don’t know how to celebrate ourselves very much,” she says. “Especially just like brown skin, or curly hair.” It’s a part of her heritage which was perhaps downplayed, she explains – with her mother being Anglo-Indian, and having Portuguese ancestry in the family – but it was something “she held onto dearly”.

“I honestly know English better than my own mother tongue,” she says. “Because it was taught to us that you speak English to empower yourself with a language that’s just global.” However, that’s not to negate the fashion that she saw in Kochi growing up, which Namita describes as a “sea of gold and jewel tones”.

“I was surrounded by the jewel tones that a lot of women would wear down south, especially the shiny silk saris,” she remembers. “I really love that, despite the fact that we might have had an internalised view of our brown skin, it didn’t stop any woman I saw on the street wear any colour, which I think really stuck with me.”

BROADENING HORIZONS

Armed with that hunger to explore the fashion industry, Namita was particularly inspired by international lifestyle channel FashionTV, where she was exposed to different styles, subcultures, and identities.

“When I watched FashionTV, I saw so much diversity,” she recollects. “I still remember that one moment where I saw this beautiful black model stomping down the runway. And then I was just like, you can’t tell me that’s not beautiful. So that really influenced my decision into thinking I would like to try this out. I want to take up space as a brown girl and I hope that Kerala can one day catch up to how beautiful people actually are.”

At the age of 17, Namita took the opportunity to leave her hometown and move to the north to the Indian capital, New Delhi. Studying fashion design at college, Namita was able to explore style and creativity like she never had before. In fact, she also found herself embracing her Indian culture more than ever before.

“I dressed up in many different ways – I dressed more Indian than how I did back in the south. I was wearing huge bindis, huge earrings. Everything just came together really easily.”

But while she was immersing herself in an industry she had so longed to be part of since she was young, it was in the throes of her studies that Namita began to realise that maybe design wasn’t the path for her. She admits it was a “hard conclusion to come to”, given the hours and work she had put into her degree, but after dabbling in modelling, it was a no-brainer that this was the path she was meant to take.

While it was a huge learning curve, establishing herself as a model in the fashion space, being in front of the camera became a passion for Namita. “When I’m posing, there is something very meditative,” she notes. “It’s just been a very gratifying experience.”

TAKING UP SPACE

In just five years, she’s travelled all across India, working for some of the most established regional designers, as well as some global fashion houses. And now she graces the cover of GRAZIA’s eighth print edition, Cultural Exchange.

Shooting on location in Jaipur, also known as the Pink City, Namita describes the cover shoot as “the absolute dream”.

“We jumped between so many different beautiful sights, there was so much colour and so many people,” she says, adding they were very “quietly curious”, something she also notes for herself. “I mirrored that back – I was also very quietly curious about my surroundings.

“It was incredible to be dropped into so many different types of architecture and terrain. It was just very creatively inspiring. And in between, there were just moments of very full gratitude that I had this opportunity. I would shut my eyes because the sun, but also out of gratitude.”

And as she continues to immerse herself in the different subcultures of India, Namita is ready to take on the global modelling stage and champion her culture alongside that.

“I am from a small town, I am in a larger city and I can turn this into a strength, and really just tell myself to take up space, and that includes modelling,” she says. “Just being seen in the fashion industry, being able to talk about yourself and your journey, it influences every micro decision of how you present yourself to the world.

“And for me, it’s taking up space – and, honestly, wearing a lot of gold.”

CREATIVE DIRECTION: DANÉ STOJANOVIC
PHOTOGRAPHY: AVANI RAI
STYLING: LAURA JANE BROWN
MODEL: AMITA SUNIL AT ANIMA CREATIVES
HAIR: JEAN-LUC AMARIN
MAKEUP: ESHWAR LOG
SENIOR PRODUCER: STEFF HAWKER
DIGITECH: HARMAN ACHINT
FASHION ASSISTANT: CHARLOTTE MARSH-WILLIAMS
WORDS: OLIVIA MORRIS
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO THE OBEROI RAJVILAS