IN THE BOX

With Sanjana Batra

Here’s my favourite thing about Sanjana Batra. As a content creator and Instagram influencer, Sanjana serves legit high-fashion moments and makes them somehow palatable for real life. Head-to-toe prints, bold lush colour worn unapologetically in monotones, all-black drama, boom, she keeps serving, never insulting our attention.

But in all fairness to everyone else in the overcrowded, often cookie-cutter world of influencing, Sanjana works from a vantage point. She comes to fashion influencing having first cut her teeth in the gruelling world of celebrity fashion styling, with a roster that includes Bollywood actors Alia Bhatt, Parineeti Chopra, Shilpa Shetty, Kriti Sanon, Radhika Apte, Kalki Koechlin, and Tamannaah Bhatia. Long before she played her own muse, she’d already mastered the art of putting together looks that needed to hold their own on their famous wearers. Of envisioning the bigger picture: The art of how said looks will photograph and show up across social media feeds.

Learned and earned through dressing other people is a deep understanding of her own style. What she wears conveys personality, and communicating our inner worlds via what we put on our bodies, is the essence of compelling personal style. And this is what makes me curious about her relationship with jewellery, a style sub-category that asks faithfulness of its wearer, especially in the ever-churning world of trends Sanjana inhabits professionally.

Natasha Khurana: So tell us how you got where you are? I know you used to style to begin with, but I don't know how much people remember of that.

Sanjana Batra: My first job was an ad production house in Bombay. I’d always loved fashion but hadn’t identified which area I wanted to work in. I just knew that people worked in magazines or people worked as designers, but I didn't really know that a job as a stylist even existed. I was trying to assist someone on a styling team, and somehow in an SOS situation, I landed my first solo styling Nargis Fakhri. I went headfirst, not knowing how the whole process works, the sourcing, the logistics.

I learned all my lessons on the job, there was no real training. I was winging it, but I also feel it was a time where everyone was winging it because it was such a new concept. For an actor to have a stylist was fairly new back then, until then they all worked with designers. 

Being a stylist was a sort of boot camp because you get used to working under extreme stress and no fixed hours. More often than not, you have to say yes versus no. I think that really shaped my attitude to work, and who I am. I'm really grateful, I got to do it in that hustle culture sort of way.

NK: And how did you go from that to this? 

SB: I moved back to Delhi for what I thought was temporary when COVID happened, and basically never left. I came home that March, we were pretty much locked down for that year. Slowly I started creating my own content, putting things together from my own wardrobe, creating very organic phone-shot content. And I realized it's an extension of styling because you get to curate and put things together – except only it's a reflection of your true personal style versus when I'm styling someone where the client’s opinion and their preferences played a very important role. I found this quite fulfilling and fun, and not as much pressure.

Things started opening up after the lockdown, and I was going back and forth between Delhi and Bombay. I continued creating content on the side because I started getting collaborations with brands I had worked with, or I had a relationship with or who I wanted to collaborate with from a creative point of view. Gradually, over the next couple of years, this took over. I think one thing that’s been very important – and this is for most creative people – is that we truly need to enjoy what we're doing. Because if it’s not fulfilling, at least for me, it reflects in my work. 

NK: And so how do you catch yourself there? 

SB: I feel it happened, with styling. I’d hit a roadblock. I wasn’t feeling excited by my work, or as motivated, or thinking of newer directions, it had become autopilot. I knew that was dangerous territory. And sometimes it’s a phase but when that feeling is not going away, you know that it’s time for change.

Also personally, I was much happier being in Delhi. I used to live alone in Bombay, but when I came back to Delhi, I was with my husband, Awral, and our dogs. I’d tasted blood and couldn’t go back to living alone. A lot of people's mindset and priorities just changed after COVID, I'm definitely one of those people who had a massive shift in how I want to live my life. I wanted that personal and professional life balance; I didn't have that in Bombay where I was just working all the time. Truth be told, I always knew I'd probably move back to Delhi at some point, but I was scared of, what next, what will I do.

NK: So coming back to styling, tell me, when you create a look, what is the role of jewellery? I know you always wear quite a bit of jewellery. 

SB: Yeah, I do. A lot of times in fact, I plan the look based on jewellery. I did that for my wedding, I planned the look I wore around the jewellery. Even from when I was styling, I had clients who were also like that and preferred doing it that way. For me it's a very integral part of when I'm styling a look, it's possibly the first thing I think of. 

People assume that jewellery becomes the finishing touch or the added accessory, but a lot of times people actually plan their look based on the jewellery they want to wear. And I love jewellery because I feel like it sets the tone for styling for me. You could be wearing the same outfit but just based on the jewellery you choose; it could be for three different occasions. I like that kind of flexibility and the versatility it gives me.

And I enjoy re-wearing jewellery, which is different from re-wearing clothes, in that I get very attached to the pieces I truly love because most of them have a story or some kind of memory attached; or if it's something that's been given to you by your mother or your grandmother or a partner. And it’s even more special if you've gifted it to yourself. I think as I'm getting older, I'm valuing jewellery more than ever.

NK: And is any particular category of jewellery you’re partial to, whether it's earrings or necklaces or rings that you always have to have? 

SB: Earrings, I think that's what I gravitate towards. I do love rings as well. But definitely if I even look at the jewellery I have, its always just a beautiful pair of earrings.

NK: Do you have a first or early jewellery memory? 

SB: Obviously my sister and I like we were obsessed with playing dress up as children, no shocker there. We lived in Bombay and we'd come down to Delhi for the holidays, and one vivid memory I have is my grandmother's dressing table – one of those really old-school dressing tables which had all these pearl necklaces on a stand and her extensive collection of lipsticks. So I used to love just layering her pearls (it’s never a less-is-more moment for me) and walking around the house. And it’s really special because, later in life, she gifted me one of those necklaces.

NK: And we were talking about how jewellery often has a specific emotion or memory has attached to it because of whoever gave it to you. Are there any such pieces that you particularly cherish?

SB: I showed you this pair of earrings that my mother-in-law’s friend from Pakistan gave me, the green ones. I don't even know her very well, but it was just the most beautiful gifts I received which stood out in a sea of wedding gifts. I just absolutely love their old-world charm, the fact that you can wear them with Indianwear and a western outfit and they look equally impactful.

The other piece that is really special to me is a wraparound diamond bracelet, it's the first piece my husband, Awral gifted me. Pretty much anything I receive from my mother is always special because she'll tell me how and when she bought it, and it's just amazing to see when things are truly are timeless. Like when I wore a set of hers for my cousin’s wedding and I posted on Instagram and the amount of people who messaged me asking where it's from. For me, there’s even more value in things that have stood the test of time. Another piece I absolutely love, is a Hasli that my mother-in-law gifted me, which her dad gifted to her. It’s just such a simple piece in gold, but it looks so beautiful when worn. I love trend pieces but it’s the classics I cherish the most.

NK: And what’s the first piece of jewellery you ever bought yourself?

SB: It’s an emerald ring eternity band. I think that was a turning point because before that I never really bought expensive jewellery, or I hadn't bought any real jewellery. And for me, everyday wear is very important, so when I'm buying jewellery, I like to buy pieces that I know I can wear every day. 

NK: Isn't it funny, what a mind block it is to buy real jewellery? But once you start, then it's easy enough. We could spend the same money on a bag or a pair of shoes, but I don't know why the mind block exists to buy fine jewellery. 

SB: But I've noticed, for most people there's a shift at some given point. And I was probably the only one out of my friends who had this mindset. Most of them would much rather and will spend on jewellery versus a bag. But yes, for me that shift has only happened in the last few years to be honest, where I’ve started buying jewellery myself.

NK: Maybe because it's something that we’re conditioned into being given to us or bought for us or handed down.

SB: Honestly, I've always been someone who doesn't like something to be chosen for or bought for me. So, as much as I love something which has a story, that notion is also a little problematic for me -- even within my mom's jewellery, I'm very selective.

I think you have to form your own style. I think a lot of people's jewellery choices are formed by what they see worn on others or what they see in their mother’s collection, or their family, or simply, whatever is being given to them. I think it’s important that you find your own style in terms of what you truly like, what you love wearing, what you gravitate towards. For me that discovery happened in the last few years. 

What happens with all your real jewellery is you have very few occasions far and few where you wear it right? For most people it's weddings essentially, or maybe in Delhi we’re a little extravagant, on Diwali. But because I end up shooting so much and creating looks, I also started wearing more jewellery in the process and discovering what I liked or don’t like. A lot of people don't even have enough exposure to wearing it frequently enough to be like, oh, this I love, this looks good on me, this makes me feel like the best version of me.

NK: So what are some of the things that you wear every day? 

SB: I wear a stack of about two or three bracelets, one is the wraparound, then I'll add thinner stacked bracelets. And I will wear my Cartier Love band. I don't actually wear earrings every day because I always change those based on my look.

NK: When you're when you're buying jewellery, and I'm not limiting you to vintage or real or costume here but whatever you’re buying, what are the boxes you're looking for them to tick? 

SB: Wearability, a sense of timelessness, and quality.  

By Natasha Khurana

Styling Shivani Mathur 

Photography Kirti Virmani