Whatever you may feel about unworthy influencers flooding Cannes and making it less about the movies and more about the Red Carpet, Nancy Tyagi is clearly an exception to the rule. The Delhi-based fashion creator, who is known for recreating looks that she has seen celebrities wear, has been running a 100-days-of-outfits-from-scratch series. She chooses a look, then goes to her local market, buys material at dirt cheap rates, stitches her outfit by hand, with a trusted sewing machine to help and voila!—she reappears at the end of these videos after reconstructing the dress and along with her own quiet fierceness.
Was it her mother who guided her fingers to be as adept at the sewing machine? We ask, she laughs childishly, “No no, Mom doesn’t know it at all. Even though I am using her sewing machine! My mother is too busy playing with the puppy I got her.” Her father is back in Baranwa, her village in Uttar Pradesh where he works as a TV technician.
Her talent with the thread and needle has made her the only influencer who has received only bouquets, no brickbats at Cannes. Her follower count has jumped to 1.7 million in the past week alone.
She first got noticed for her pink voluminous gown, made with 1,000 metres of fabric, weighing over 20 kgs. Her second outing was in a lilac hoodie gown made of a sheer embroidered fabric. But how did Tyagi, a Barnawa-girl, get interested in high fashion? Her brother Manu has been quoted as assaying that she came to Delhi during COV.