With Her Latest Collection, Rupal Banerjee Is Shaping Womanhood From The Inside Out

The first time I wore a lungi was also, in many ways, one of the first times I felt whole as a woman. It happened a couple of months ago at a Bollywood costume party, and I had no idea what to wear. My friends begged me to come as 'Meenamma' from Chennai Express and, as the token South Indian, I was happy to oblige, but wearing a half-saree felt far too elaborate, and I simply didn’t have the time.

So my dad, laughing, said, “Just lean into the stereotype and wear a lungi. Go dressed as a South Indian villain from a movie very clearly made by North Indians.” And so I did. I borrowed his turquoise-green lungi, my mom helped me drape it, and in that moment, I felt not just cool but deeply myself, from the inside out.

Which is why Rupal Banerjee’s newest collection, Built from the Inside Out, feels like stepping into a dreamscape stitched straight from her imagination. A Los Angeles–based, South-Asian designer, she infuses her South Asian cultural sensibilities with a contemporary street-style edge. One of her designs in this lookbook, for instance, echoes the Madras check sarees worn by women across Tamil Nadu. Her label Ru by Rupal centres around creating visuals that are not just aesthetically striking but emotionally rooted.

Through silhouettes that aren’t traditionally “feminine,” she brings out the woman within: “the lens is still a woman designing for women — understanding how we move, protect our energy, take up space, and evolve.” The colours range from classic nudes to vibrant reds, mapping the spectrum of emotions and understandings you develop as a woman.

The shoot is set against a fading blue wall that immediately tells you stories about the people who inhabit the space — from old childhood photographs to pictures of gods taped to the surface. The most seemingly unimportant yet distinct details are the old Coca-Cola bottles reused as water bottles and the cloth draped over a plastic chair. These are familiar symbols in many South Asian homes, and Banerjee, who also creatively directed the shoot, uses them to juxtapose this “modern” woman against a deeply traditional South Asian backdrop.

The collection exudes confidence and a sense of surety. The clothes are not trying to be anything but themselves, and each piece tells a story. There is no pressure to conform, no attempt to mimic a Western silhouette or a South Asian stereotype. It doesn’t look outward to seek confirmation on what it must be, it trusts itself. 

In that sense, Built from the Inside Out feels like more than just a fashion collection. It’s an invitation to inhabit your body with ease, to see strength in your contradictions, to embrace the “unfeminine” parts of yourself that have always been feminine in their own way. It reflects the same feeling I had when I first wore that lungi — that even though I had tied that piece of cloth around me, I felt unraveled.

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