You don’t just eat a watermelon, you can wear it too. Last week, on one of those dreadfully blistering days, Aashna Singh and Sneha Saksena of The Olio Storeys fashioned a dress based on their favourite fruit—the watermelon. Their creative protean transpired in the form of a juicy pink dress with a green and white collar, scattered with applique work that looked like watermelon seeds. Fresh to be served. The girls confess to be weirdos with quirks that keep their enthusiasm alive. What’s better is that their inspiration lies anywhere, from the pavement to the sky, and they execute it without abandon.
Their latest collection is called Hop Skip Jump and it tells the story of riotous adventures. Nature’s vitality and the first days of spring brings our hearts together. “A lot of what we create, comes from walks in park,” says Singh, who lends her eclectic personality to her work. She loves clouds, has the worst road rage and sees dreams so vivid that she wakes up exhausted. “I intentionally snort when I laugh because it’s fun. My plan B is to become a farmer,” she says. Oh, and yeah, she almost convinces us that she was a dog from Madasgascar in her last life to who she owes her keen sense of smell.
Moving on, we find a rack full of hangers with a heterogenous melody of minimalistic outfits in the room where we meet them. The hatched dress is right at the front. It’s an evolution from the brands best selling Fried Egg Dress launched last summer. “The egg has now hatched,” says Saksena. Here is a girl obsessive not just about her brand but equally about moisturising. If her body feels dry, she gets a headache. She also lets us know that she gets separation anxiety if her laptop isn’t with her. She hates sharing her bed and sleeps only after creating a pillow wall. “I do yoga every morning, and that sorts me out for the day,” she says, before the keyboard dress in front of her, distracts her. “Isn’t it just the thing you need for summer?” she asks.
The choice could also be between the button down, off-shoulder caterpillar dress or the donut dress with high-low hem and appliqué graphic details.
The bottom line for Singh and Saxsena is that they have no complaints. They are designers of stories that are all quirky, that to with happy endings.