It’s Saturday, and my Uber pulls up to a former glass factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I’m here to shoot and interview South Asian creative director, photographer, and creator Tanya Ravichandran, best known for her vintage unboxing videos on social media. The fourth-floor, two-level loft she found on Craigslist features built-in art installations—a massive wedding cake with a dagger through its center hangs on the wall—the first hint of Tanya’s knack for rare, coveted pieces. Another clue follows: her boyfriend arrives with breakfast, then carefully curates her favorite designer vintage for the entirety of our shoot.
First up: a rolling rack lined with runway treasures, like the Dior leather mirror pants from F/W 2002 collection. "They were my dream to get because they use mirror work from artisans in Rajasthan,” Ravichandran says, referencing how mirrors are a beloved Indian textile. “It's so special to me." Next, two Prada sets from the late '90s: a mirrored leather skirt, trench, and bag and a tiled white camisole and pleated skirt. Lastly, she pulls out the famed Alexander McQueen Supercalifragilistic beige net “milkmaid” corseted cocktail dress. Tanya herself is floating across the room wearing a deer-print lace-up top and skirt combo—Yves Saint Laurent from the Tom Ford circa 2002—that looks like it was made just for her. Later, she unveils a S/S 1996 Maison Martin Margiela sequin print Trompe L'Oeil Maxi Dress and opera tabby gloves, both of which are also currently on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Ravichandran, whose fashion approach is rooted in sustainability and cultural inclusion, took a non-prescriptive path to collecting archival pieces. Growing up in Cupertino, California, she wasn’t exactly surrounded by fashion lovers like herself. "My parents used to always say you can only be three things in life: an engineer, a doctor, or a loser,” she says. “I knew I needed to do something separate from anything my parents could control."
Enter: photography. When Tanya was just 10 years old, Instagram was taking off, and she started snapping photos of her friends. As one of the first photographers on the app, she began building a devoted online community, brick by brick. "I have a very educated audience of South Asian women, and they always let me know what's up,” she says. “I've learned a lot, and I'm really grateful for them."
By age 14, she got her first industry break: "The head of photography at PacSun shot me a DM and said, 'I'd love for you to shoot with us.'" From there, Ravichandran started photographing their smaller campaigns, leading to gigs with Aeropostal and some magazines. At 19, an invite and a plane ticket to Paris Fashion Week landed in her lap. With fast fashion in the rearview, Ravichandran began shapeshifting creatively, making a name for herself as one of the only South Asian creators in the luxury fashion space. "The amount of shows I've been to where I'm the only woman of color in the room is insane," she says. "You have to work ten times harder than someone who is not a woman of color in order to achieve the same goals."
She highlights Dries Van Noten's use of Indian embroidery throughout his career. "He even had the Spring/Summer 1998 collection in India—but tell me why there were only three South Asian models on the runway?” she says. “So many of our textiles are used in fashion, but we aren't included in the conversation.” For her, collecting archival pieces goes deeper than just a passion for a well-tailored piece—it’s a way for her to put a stake in an industry that’s historically overlooked people who looked like her. "Maybe [designers] couldn't include people like me back then, but I can own [them] now and feel a little closer to my heritage,” she says.
At just 23, Ravichandran has skyrocketed to the top of the fashion influencer upper echelon, cracking the code on not only sourcing the most hard-to-get pieces, but also attending the right shows (Prada, Ann Demeulemeester, Acne Studios this past season), getting the it-girl treatment in press features (Wonderland, Numero, Paper, now Coveteur), and even showing up in A-listers' photo dumps (cough, Bella Hadid a few days ago).
But Tanya’s talents go beyond taste—her wealth of fashion history knowledge is academic. Think John Cusack’s (or Zoë Kravitz’s) character in High Fidelity, but for clothes. "I have an obsessive mindset where if I want to learn something, I have to learn every aspect of it," she says; it’s a trait she credits to her computer science major in college. She rattles off facts about her favorite designers with the passion of a professor giving a thesis for her doctorate. But there’s one particular designer she favors above all the others: Ann Demeulemeester, the Belgian-based known for her avant-garde approach and meticulous tailoring. For one of our shots, Ravichandran dons a red leather look from the Fall/Winter'01 collection, along with triple-lace black leather boots from FW 08. "[Ann] attended The Royal Academy of Fine Art," she says, going on to explain how Demeulemeester emerged from an iconic group known as the Antwerp Six: Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Bikkembergs, and Marina Yee. A key tip for anyone else who is obsessed with shopping vintage Ann: "If the care tag says 'Made in Belgium,' Ann herself designed the piece," she says.
Though her designer collection is extensive, Ravichandran says that she considers herself a “one-bag” kind of girl—even though I spot plenty of covetable handbags scattered around her makeshift closet. I zero in on her 2007 Alexander McQueen Armour bag—the one that instigated a spike in resale prices after one of her TikToks popped off. Then, a near-mint-condition Dior Galliano Saddle bag (timeless), and a quilted Chanel top-handle tote she bought from The RealReal with her first big influencer paycheck.
Despite Ravichandran's meticulous handling of each piece, she informs us she intends to wear them "to the ground because they look cooler that way.” I imagine late designers like Vivienne Westwood, who spent a career immersed in the punk scene, or Alexander McQueen, known for rebellion—Ravichandran owns a rare piece from the Spring/Summer 2003 runway—would be proud. The black leather ring moto jacket she's now put on is in mint condition. It's from McQueens' collection, Irere collection—the Amazonian word for transformation, and a sentiment the 23-year-old creative holds in her approach to luxury fashion.
After three hours of shooting, we settle into a velvet sofa in one of two walk-in closets, up a steep, railingless stairwell she's climbed like a gazelle in Tom Ford for Gucci-era boots. Ravichandran’s still taking a mile a minute with all the stamina of a lovesick fashion girlie, of Rachel Zoe waxing poetic backstage during her heyday, or a Bravo obsessive explaining reunion seating to their partner. She rattles off every detail of her favorite gems: the show, the look number, the model who wore them, even who the designer was hanging out with socially at the time, and where. Her dog Chai, an albino labradoodle, rests sweetly at her feet.
Tanya's youthful excitement is captivating in the luxury world, where monotone delivery and aloofness are the norm. She flips the idea that archival fashion belongs locked in a luxury estate somewhere in the hills of Los Angeles—away from the normies, perused only by celebrity stylists and tended to by assistants. Instead, if TikTok is any indication, which it often is, Ravichandran is proof that cherished archives might be best served in the hands of a Gen Zer who shares their beauty (and heritage) with her burgeoning online community, alongside garment backstories that sound as juicy as a gossip session, opening up the close-off world of fashion to to a whole new audience.
Her advice for the vintage curious? She’s a firm believer the only way to get good at anything is to practice. "Get obsessed with one collection and start small by learning everything,” she says. “Watch the show fifty times. Memorize the tags. Become an expert on that one show."
We finish off with a game of rapid-fire:
TikTok or Instagram? "Instagram."
Bags, shoes, or clothes? "Clothes."
’90s or Y2K? “’90s.”
Spring or Fall shows? "Fall."
Paris or Milan runway? "Paris."
Apps or archive dealers? "Archive dealers."
That one surprises me. Tanya smiles before clarifying: "Because I take their photo, then reverse Google image search to find it for less." She credits her unassuming earnestness as the reason she’s convinced more than a few sellers into negotiating their price. She buys under a pseudonym. Where? A place she considers the most gatekept pro-tip in her arsenal: "All the vintage sellers in New York are sourcing from Poshmark,” she says. “It's where I probably find 9 out of 10 of my pieces." Let the vintage hunting begin!
