![\"Saffron](\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2026\/03\/GZ_ME17_Covers_Saffron-scaled.jpg\")
Looking back now, with 10 years in the industry under her belt, multiple magazine covers and more cities than she can easily list, what stays with her isn\u2019t the pace but the feeling fashion brings to her.<\/p>\n
The realisation, early on, that fashion for her was less about the runway and more about the imagination behind it. \u201cMagical\u201d is the word she comes back to \u2013 describing not only the outcome, but the process, too.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it\u2019s a perspective that\u2019s been rooted in her dual-national upbringing. Saffron is British-Indian, with a family history that holds multiple geographies. Her mother is British, her father is Indian \u2013 born in Nairobi, Kenya, before moving to the UK when he was around 12 years old. It\u2019s clear her heritage is something that she takes great pride in. I ask how that same sense of duality \u2013 of seeing the world through more than one lens \u2013 has been shaped by her heritage, and how it informs the way she moves through fashion today, not just as a model, but as someone in whom many young women now see themselves.<\/p>\n
For Saffron, though, the answer doesn\u2019t begin with fashion at all, but with the women she grew up watching \u2013 her two grandmothers.<\/p>\n
Her British nan\u2019s hair was in big rollers, nails always done, heels on, perfectly put together. \u201cMy granddad said he liked pink nails,\u201d she tells me, \u201cso for 60 years my nan has had pink nails\u201d. Quintessentially British, and, as she puts it, \u201calways, always dressed up\u201d. Then her Indian grandma: long, dark hair, colourful saris, stacks of jewellery worn, no matter what the occasion. \u201cEven in the kitchen,\u201d she says, \u201cbangles, earrings\u2026 it always looked really nice\u201d.<\/p>\n What she recognises now is the common thread between them. Different aesthetics, the same intention \u2013 a belief that getting dressed was simply part of the day. Both women would cook in full uniform, as though there were no such thing as an off-duty version of themselves. \u201cThat\u2019s the last thing I would do now,\u201d she laughs, and I tell her I\u2019m exactly the same. It\u2019s only in hindsight, she says, that she understands what she was absorbing. \u201cGrowing up with them side by side gave me such a strong sense of two different kinds of beauty from two different heritages,\u201d the model reflects.<\/p>\n However, despite having two strong (and stylish) female role models growing up, Saffron admits she didn\u2019t see herself reflected in the fashion world during those formative years.<\/p>\n At that time, she explains, there was a diaspora dynamic, where integration was a priority \u2013 being British first \u2013 while heritage was something primarily expressed in private. She is careful to frame it generationally \u2013 \u201ca sign of the times\u201d \u2013 but its impact was lasting.<\/p>\n Without visible South Asian models in Western fashion, there was no established image in which she could recognise herself. Indian cinema provided one kind of mirror; Western fashion, at that point, did not. \u201cI never really saw myself in the girls on the catwalk,\u201d she says, and so her career became, in part, an act of placing herself into a space where no obvious reference point existed. \u201cWhen I first started, it was almost like I was seeing where I fit myself.\u201d In short, she is the one who is now the blueprint.<\/p>\n Now, with a decade of work behind her, she is more direct about what that lack of representation still looks like in practice. There are brands she wants to work with, brands she has asked to be pushed toward \u2013 and she has been told, plainly, that they don\u2019t work with Indian girls.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been in conversations where I\u2019ve gone, \u2018I want to work with this brand,\u2019 and they\u2019re like, \u2018No, they don\u2019t want to work with Indian girls.\u2019\u201d It\u2019s 2026 and she is still navigating the limits of someone else\u2019s imagination. That, she says, is where \u201cresponsibility\u201d comes in. \u201cThere is still a long way to go with things,\u201d Saffron affirms bluntly \u2013 and rightly so.<\/p>\n That responsibility she speaks of extends beyond industry representation terms. The desire to be visible for others stems from a much earlier chapter. \u201cI would like for people to look at the magazines and see the work I do with charity and things like that,\u201d Saffron explains, referring to her ambassadorship with Leukaemia UK.<\/p>\n Saffron was diagnosed with leukaemia aged three, with treatment stretching until she was seven \u2013 arguably an age bracket that sits right at the edge of memory. When I ask her how this period of her life shaped her, she pauses, thoughtful. \u201cIt\u2019s interesting,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause if you asked me three years ago, I think I would have had a different answer\u201d.<\/p>\n As we discuss her cancer battle, she goes back to the word \u201cresilient\u201d multiple times, but doesn\u2019t appear to remember hospital visits as a negative thing \u2013 she remembers it as\u2026 life. It was made to feel almost positive, with small things to look forward to after treatment such as ball-pits, play and more. \u201cThere was never a negative thing,\u201d she reiterates. The only enduring fear is injections \u2013 she laughs, but she means it: \u201cI absolutely hate injections.\u201d<\/p>\n The shift, she tells me, happened when she started seeing children in her family grow up, particularly her cousin\u2019s kids, now seven and three. \u201cIt\u2019s so interesting watching them,\u201d she says, \u201chow what you put into their minds carries on\u201d. And in watching them, she reflects on her treatment years. \u201cIt was always about just getting on with things, but not in a \u2018let\u2019s not talk about it\u2019 way, but just, you have to do these things in order to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s only now, she tells me, through the work she does with families currently in treatment, that she has begun to understand the magnitude of what her own parents lived through. Speaking to mothers and fathers standing at the beginning of that same journey has shifted the perspective. \u201cParents are terrified,\u201d she says simply. \u201cThey just want to know their child is going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n She remembers one conversation in particular, with a father who told her that his instinct \u2013 as a parent, as a man \u2013 was to fix things, to find a solution, to take control. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t do anything here,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t fix this.\u201d The helplessness of it stopped her in her tracks, because what she sees now is the parallel story with her own parents. Her father, she says, was \u201cbeside himself\u201d, something she only discovered later in the clinical notes she was given access to as an adult. Her mother responded differently. \u201cShe went into overdrive,\u201d Saffron recalls.<\/p>\n Even now, however, it\u2019s in the smallest details that the weight of what a young Saffron went through reveals itself. She starts telling me about a kitchen renovation not long ago, but then stops. \u201cOh my god, I\u2019m going to cry,\u201d she says, catching herself mid-sentence. In the middle of clearing cupboards, she had found a blue plastic tub tucked away at the back. Inside were strips of unopened medication. The fashion model recalls initially thinking it was paracetamol, when it was in fact remnants of her leukaemia medication.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018Mum, why have you still got this?\u2019\u201d Saffron recollects. \u201cAnd she was like, \u2018Because I feel like, if I was going to give it away, then it might come back.\u2019\u201d A superstition born not of logic but of fear. Saffron pauses again, but continues, \u201cBut she said, \u2018No, I can\u2019t get rid of it, because I feel like if I got rid of it, then you\u2019d get ill again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n However harrowing, it\u2019s from these experiences that Saffron is now able to offer comfort to those going through something similar, which she says she cares so much about.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing able to respond from my own lived experience is honestly the most meaningful part for me,\u201d she adds. \u201cSometimes there are things doctors can\u2019t answer, or things parents don\u2019t want to ask, and I\u2019m happy that I\u2019m able to answer those questions for parents or children.\u201d If she could say one thing to those currently in it, she adds, it would be this: \u201cThis moment isn\u2019t forever. When you\u2019re in it, it can feel completely all-consuming, but there is a future beyond it. You are so much more than your illness.\u201d<\/p>\n It feels like the natural point to turn the lens back onto her. Having spent so much of our conversation talking about survival, visibility and the long arc of becoming, I ask what awakening (aptly our theme for this edition of GRAZIA) looks like in her own life \u2013 whether it arrives as a single, defining shift or something quieter.<\/p>\n The answer, when it comes, is characteristically undramatic. She doesn\u2019t believe in a single, cinematic turning point. \u201cI don\u2019t think we only have just one awakening,\u201d she says. \u201cFor me, life feels more like a series of big and small moments that quietly shift the path you\u2019re on.\u201d<\/p>\n What she describes instead is a deepening sense of connection, be it to time, to the people around her, to the versions of herself she has already lived. Her cousin\u2019s baby girl, now a few years old, altered her perspective in ways she didn\u2019t anticipate. Being asked to be her best friend\u2019s maid of honour had a similar effect.<\/p>\n While the past year has been a slower, more reflective one for Saffron, she is ready to embark on a new chapter with acting \u2013 one of her earliest ambitions.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been thinking more about where I put my energy,\u201d she says. \u201cIt feels less about proving anything now, and more about growing.\u201d Speaking further of acting, she continues: \u201cCreatively, I\u2019m stepping into something new, which has made me feel more curious and a bit braver about where my work might go. It doesn\u2019t feel like I\u2019m following a set path anymore. I\u2019m just letting myself explore and being open to learning as I go, even if that means changing my mind or seeing things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n In a way, it\u2019s a beginning again, but not as a reset, rather a continuation. But when we specifically speak about the so-called five-year plan, it\u2019s not about work milestones, it\u2019s life. \u201cA husband and a baby is in my future,\u201d she says with ease.<\/p>\n From being the child who learned resilience before she understood the word, to being the teenager who entered an industry without a reference point, and now the woman returning to her earliest creative instincts, it\u2019s clear that Saffron Vadher is not stepping into a role that already exists \u2013 she is the one writing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42685,"featured_media":69514,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[65,35],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2026\/03\/GRAZIA-print-portrait-117.png\")
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