Jahnavi Sharma's Zine Centres Women's 'Drawers' As A Site Of Intimacy & Ritual

We have a weirdly politicised relationship with women's inner wear in India. A visible bra strap here is scandalous, while the absence of one can feel like a violation of an unspoken social contract. Modesty becomes a form of surveillance that regulates and polices the female body under the guise of culture. Yet behind closed doors is a space untouched by this external scrutiny, shaped instead by expression, tenderness, and a woman’s relationship with herself. 'Drawers', a digital zine published by Guest Editions in collaboration with photographer Carina Lammers, that gently unpacks this complex terrain through a female gaze.

Curated by Indian creative director, stylist, and curator Jahnavi Sharma, Drawers is a visual meditation on the most private part of a woman’s wardrobe: the underwear drawer. Exploring the intersections between body, garment, and routine, the zine is described as "a quiet and reflective study shaped by both personal memory and broader cultural codes of what lies closest to the skin."

“Growing up in India,” Jahnavi shares, “I was shaped by a cultural landscape where conversations around femininity, the body, and intimacy were often cloaked in silence. Modesty was both a value and a veil — one that covered not just our bodies but also the language we used to talk about them.” It is from this deeply personal and cultural backdrop that Drawers emerges — as a depiction of something real and unguarded.

Rooted in a practice that sits at the intersection of fashion, art, and storytelling, Jahnavi’s approach to visual culture is attuned to emotional texture. Her ideas come alive through daily life; conversations, objects, fleeting moments. And art for her becomes not just visual stimulation, but a form of dialogue with time, context, and emotion. She describes her work as a way of "translating what I see and feel around me into visual language."

“I was curious about their relationship with their underwear drawers not just as a physical space, but as an emotional one,” she says. The project began with a simple yet radical premise: to spend time with women in their private spaces, listen to their stories, and document these moments with care. The zine is less about the garments themselves and more about what they represent. Choosing underwear each morning, Jahnavi observes, is often the first gesture in the daily ritual of dressing. It is intimate, habitual, and deeply personal. “There’s something sacred about that moment — it’s a private gesture, but a universal one," she admits.

Currently stocked at the Photographer’s Gallery in London, Claire de Rouen, Public Knowledge, and Pulp Society, Drawers is a mirror held up to the way women carve out space for themselves. It is grounded in lived experience, softness, and vulnerability; existing freely and radically outside the sexualised and commodified narrative that women's bodies are routinely subjected to around the world.

Follow Jahnavi here.

Credits:

Published by: Guest Editions

Creative direction styling: Jahnavi Shaarma

Photographer and creative direction: Carina Lammers

Models/talents/friends: Marie, Rehana, Aparna, Jessica, Nine, Charlotte, Lan, Lily.

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