I meet fashion designer and artist Misha Japanwala on a cool Sunday afternoon in a fully packed coffee shop in Karachi. We are here to talk about her developing creative practice and I have lots of questions about her audacious ‘body’ casts. Equal parts clothing and art, Japanwala’s works would claim a place in the overlapping space in a Venn diagram of fashion and fine art, if there was one. In 2023, her work was shown in Pakistani group shows at Canvas gallery titled Body Ecologies, curated by Aziz Sohail, and at Sanat Initiative under the title NYX. In the same year, Hannah Traore Gallery exhibited her first solo show titled Beghairti Ki Nishani: Traces of Shamelessness in New York, USA. Her body casts have been commissioned and worn by American models like Gigi Hadid and Julia Fox, and performers like Joy Crookes, Cardi B, and Lil Nas X among others.

In sight of her rapid global visibility, Japanwala is level-headed and focused. Splitting her time between Karachi and New Jersey, she is cognizant of her socio-economic privilege and opportunity. She is also remarkably witty. “It’s a shitshow,” she says about the mess in her studio that often is. In a laborious process that demands absolute resignation, Japanwala makes layered silicone molds of the body which peel off after drying. A standard mold covering the collarbone to the end of the torso requires the person to stay put in it for at least two hours. The mold is then cast in thin layers with non-toxic resin and some fiberglass reinforcements. There are lots of flipping and peelings— a metal coat finishes the very textural sculptural pieces. “I survive on adrenaline. I have passed out twice, being covered in silicone for too long. Later, my husband and I joke about the blacking out,” she laughs.

Japanwala’s body casts are downright arresting. However, beyond the conspicuous anatomies, the seemingly confrontational depictions of sexuality, ‘bronzey’ textures, and lofty aims of bringing marginalized bodies into the center, lies a pandora’s box pertaining to complex notions of identity and contemporary design practices which the artist wants to demystify. “My undergraduate thesis at Parsons was very reflective for me,” she remembers. “I was coming to an understanding of who I wanted to be and what my art had to offer. I wanted to think about minorities and gender-based power dynamics in culture and institutions— local and international”. The result was a project that merged sculptural art and fashion design in the form of textured resin casts, of her own body, aiming to shift the viewers perception and understanding of the phenomenon of ‘shame’.

Here, I start to sense that Japanwala is pushing to address certain gaps in the fashion scene: perhaps the long ignored ‘human dimension’. “Everything is missing in the fashion world,” she says. “Take the industry in Pakistan, New York, or London: they may be different, but they are all a part of the larger eco-system which is broken at its core. The trends are not environment-friendly, and they oppose care and longevity. Having an artistic practice versus a fashion brand allows me to create at a slower pace, as opposed to being forced to churn out pieces because buyers require new seasonal collections on the rack”.

In her local cultures where women are sometimes hesitant to undergo self-examination of the body for even health reasons, Japanwala has broken this barrier of coyness. She was featured in a breast cancer awareness campaign for women by Generation. Here, the designer-artist is featured in a cast breastplate and indicates ways to conduct a self-exam. Amidst a positive reception, a certain kind of public response panned the visuals of the breast plate and accused the brand’s initiative of impropriety. “I was stunned at the many complex medical queries that were coming through our social media campaign feed,” she reflects over the public antipathy. “If this is our only resort for information, then there is something deeply amiss about how we think about our bodies and health. Okay, it is not even discomfort with the female body at this point anymore, it is straight up anger and disgust”.

Japanwala is not unreserved in talking about ‘shamelessness’ or beghairti when it comes to making body forms, in fact, redefining ‘what constitutes as shame’ is the tenet of her work. It occurs to me that besharmi (بے شرمی) would be a more apt Urdu translation of ‘shamelessness,’¹ I remark, as the word ghairat more often denotes honor and dignity in the Urdu language; culturally, this may or may not have to do with the nude body. Japanwala is not concerned as much with linguistics. “Shame and shamelessness may mean differently to everyone – my definitions suggest rejection of other’s ideas of why myself or anyone else is shameless,” she clarifies.

I wonder if Japanwala is concerned with notions of ‘modesty’ and how this may be similar or opposing to the idea of shame, as the two are often mistakenly used interchangeably in our conversational or written vernacular. Shame implies guilt or embarrassment while modesty takes integrity and simplicity into account. I am also curious if a religious sensitivity pertaining to the body ever becomes a predicament for her. For a moment, she is lost in thought, “…shame is policing and controlling, and I am not interested in addressing moderation or modesty. I believe our relationship with our body, identity, and especially with God is our own to work out, and the latter must be nobody’s business,” she ruminates.

Outside the boundaries of fashion, its commodification and art, Japanwala is interested in a ‘documentation’ of the human body— primarily female. “I wish to be explicit about my work being a record of the body with the intent of it not having to prove anything, other than being allowed to simply exist,” the artist institutes. Japanwala’s body plates channel more than a ‘reductive’ discourse around sexuality, often misinterpreted by many. They aim at women occupying the physical space: public and private; balancing the two precariously on a spectrum where one end renders the presence of women close to invisibility while the other puts them on a display—always under a gaze, diminishing agency, and identity. “Equating the femme as being inherently sexual is dangerous in a culture where sexuality is strongly tabooed, this leads to stigmatization of conversation involving the body at all. I wish to cast, document, and present the body in the most honest way. The cast is an imitation of the actual body, down to the last pore. Yet while wearing one, it works like a shell of protection, for me at least,” she states.

Several things have inspired Japanwala over the course of making. “During my time at Parsons, I enjoyed Sanam Maher’s book The Sensational Life and Death of Qandeel Baloch. Imagery from Mohenjo Daro interests me. For the show Beghairti Ki Nishani: Traces of Shamelessness,² I was also inspired by the Karachi coast and imagined it to be the site where all such future beghairat artifacts are excavated. The coastal rock formations helped develop my Fossils series for the show, where I embedded body parts (hands and nipples) into rocks. Wrapping bodies in fabric on set felt not unsimilar to the way our bodies are wrapped in cloth before burial – further emphasizing the theme of our bodies as documentation of our stories in real time for future generations.”

Japanwala designed body plates for American rapper Cardi B’s photo editorial announcing her second pregnancy on her social media, and as her outfit in the Rumors music video (song by Lizzo, featuring Cardi B), in 2021. “Oh, Cardi was pregnant at the time, juggling award shows, making videos, managing PR and styling teams, and so much more. I get a call to make two pieces for her in five days!” expresses Japanwala with emotion in her voice. “It was an out-of-body and surreal experience, to be requested as an independent Pakistani artist to mold someone with that kind of global presence”. The experience also prompted Japanwala to ponder over creative directions she wishes to take in the future. “As I expand my practice towards an archive of individuals, I recognize that even though femme, queer, and trans bodies are most disproportionately affected by shame as a tool to control our bodies, shame is something that is carried within ‘all’ bodies. I want to consider longevity; hence my work is multi-purpose. Store it as an artifact of your existence for years from now, display it on your wall or wear it as a top or adornment; basically, go live your best fucking life!” she grins.

Viewers may come to believe that Misha Japanwala’s work is perhaps for a younger female audience, but she is not so sure, “I have not yet figured that out. I realize this sense of urgency and process that must occur. Our bodies are not trends and documenting them is not a stunt. I am making it for my past and future self, as an insistent documentation of existing, as artifacts of us, our vessels, and our shamelessness,” she declares.

The interview took place in person, and via email correspondence, in 2023 and 2024.

Title Image: Beghairat Congregation 4, resin and patinated bronze metal coating, 14 x 14.5 x 2in., 2023. Credits: Hannah Traore Gallery

Disclaimer: The faces of the muses have been cropped to protect their privacy, upon the artist’s request.