For Rhea, an interest in art developed over time. “I still clearly remember when I started seeing works in my mum’s house and my aunt’s house and, for me, they were just paintings on the wall. As I got older, I started to understand what it meant. When I was about 14 years old, I saw my mother wear a locket and it was a framed painting of Anjolie Ela Menon, and I thought ‘How beautiful, I want that’.”
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Her mother promptly told her she can have it when she’s old enough to afford it—something which did not make sense to Rhea at the time. She elaborates, “For me, it was like diamonds and emeralds, and I couldn’t understand why such a high value was placed on something like this.” She continues, “Slowly, I began to understand and now I see my favourite designers like Anamika Khanna (she is always embedded in the work of art, in the world of art), my mother who is a jeweller and brands like United colours of Benetton integrating art in their creations. When you take a work of art and put it on a piece of clothing, immediately that piece of clothing starts to communicate and it starts to communicate in a way that nothing else can.”
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Thanks to social media, art is now democratic, accessible, and no longer a medium of the elite. And Rhea is glad for it. “I can create something and put it up, and I am an artist. I think that people are starting to understand the value of it when it comes to fashion and understanding that it’s not just about looking trendy, it’s also about telling a story. And I think that’s fantastic because I have always tried to tell stories with my styling, through my career, and I’m glad people are getting it,” she says.
