Written by REDDA Founder Tara De Silva
For anyone dressing the part and in the middle of becoming the person.
(I’m sure what Aunty *meant* to say was “creative entrepreneur.”)
REDDA didn’t start with a business plan. Lifelong background noise-y obsession with fashion aside, my inciting incident was a critical mass of people I love and like appealing to my vanity and telling me I dressed in a fun way: a throwaway comment at a wedding, reactions to outfit-of-the-day story updates, a friend texting “you should have a brand.” All of that put enough wind in my sails to start with, but truthfully, the messy middle — turning style into substance, personal taste into a collection, instinct into process, and all of this into a business — well, that is turning out to be a whole other thing.
In moments like these, when people are confronted with the vastness of their own shortcomings, the dramatic impulse is to look skyward and curse the gods for their oversized ambitions. Not me. I point my finger past the veil of time and straight back to 2004, to the wait staff of the Logan Airport Chili’s, and I curse them for mistaking me for the girl from the soccer movie.
The wait staff was so smiley that day. Chairs were pulled out. We even got a free Awesome Blossom.
(To the uninitiate: the Awesome Blossom was an aptly named bloom of breaded and deep-fried onion served with a ranch-style dressing dip. It was one of Chili’s signature appetizers.)
They smiled and pointed at us as we partook. I thought they were congratulating themselves on their random act of kindness. Eventually, I found out it was because I thought I was the girl from Bend It Like Beckham.
To those unfamiliar: Bend it Like Beckham is an amazing movie about a teenage girl from a strict British Punjabi family who has to choose between doing right by her familial and cultural expectations and her true love, soccer. It was an early 2000’s hit that helped put South Asians on the map in American pop culture. At that point, I’d heard enough from classmates and passerby at the mall that I bore some resemblance to Parminder Nagra.
It visibly made me blush through my dark skin.
But as I look back, the crowning jewel on my tiara of validation wasn’t the free awesome blossom. It was that all of that made me want be good at soccer. I almost made varsity, without ever having played. Such was the propulsive force of being an identifiable someone. It felt like a downright superpower. The kind that eventually wears off, unless you find new ways to keep it in rotation.
At REDDA, we believe the right jacquard jacket or bubble skirt can work almost as well as mistaken identity. We make clothes that can give you that same charge and borrowed boldness, just enough lift to carry you into the next thing. And we want to make those clothes for the ones who want to give life their best — not just because they’re aspiring to be somebody, but because they’re curious, because trying and the in-between can be fun. Because something in them suspects the best part is still ahead.
You don’t have to be the girl from that one movie to dress like someone worth rooting for.
We hope REDDA helps you feel like the main character you already are.
(P.S.: We’re pretty sure Chili’s discontinued Awesome Blossoms. But if they happen to give you one while you’re wearing REDDA, tag us, you absolute star ✧ !)
