can't pinpoint the exact moment but he’s certain it was either over dinner or while watching his grandmother cook that he first heard the mythological tale of a woman famed far and wide for her beauty, especially her long, lustrous hair. “I remember being so taken with her when I first heard the story as a kid,” recalls the who grew up in Lamka, a small town in the Zo highlands of Manipur. “My grandmother described how when this woman would wash her hair in the river, men would try to catch a glimpse of her, and how the woman would collect mountain owers in a bamboo basket.
” The folk tale of Rimenhawihi, a Mizo Rapunzel of sorts, stayed with all these years, led away in the corridors of nostalgia alongside other stories from his childhood, many of them biblical. This memory resurfaced earlier this year when he was asked to shoot Mizoram-based label Lapâr’s spring/summer collection titled Eden Huan (Eden Garden) inspired by legend. The raison d’être is to bring the puan, the traditional dress of Mizoram that’s worn as a wrap-around skirt, into contemporary consciousness without losing its cultural essence.
“I was raised by my grandmother, mother and aunt—women were so strong in my family—and I associate the puan with them,” says Guite. “My mother would carry me in it and put me to sleep in it. My work revolves around the exploration of It’s autobiographical in a sense, and it’s when I collaborate with people who share similar cultural historie.