#desiq

Sabah and Laurie spent the day shooting in Southall, stopping for some paneer tikka and naan and dodging April showers by popping in and out of food markets and clothing shops along the bustling high street. Between snaps, they chatted about taking up queer space & discussed the finer details of how to make homemade pani puri. Sabah is a queer Pakistani activist and writer, and you can follow them on Twitter @SabahChoudrey and Instagram @Sabah.C. Or check out their website www.sabahchoudrey.com. Read on!:

1. What are the significance of your top clothing choices? 

My favourite clothes I feel are more like my best disguises. They hide my curves and emphasise my lines. My favourite clothes are shirts and jewellery and shoes. My vintage shirts are masculine, bold, unusual and make me feel like I stand out, in multi-coloured stripes, floral print and leopard print. I like wearing kurtas a lot too. I like to queer desi style and wear them with jeans and boots, sometimes lipstick and eyeliner. I have fancy kussas which are really spectacular desi shoes, but I don't think they'd survive walking around on London streets.My favourite jewellery is anything gold - earrings, chains and rings - and I use it to femme up my appearance. I don't want to look like just another man in a shirt. I like triangles and circles, plain shapes.My favourite shoes are my Doc Marten chelsea boots, I have two, in black and brown, and they're my all time favourites. They add a little height which I like, and I feel like I can do anything in them and I do everything in them.

2. How do you identify your own gender identity/transmasculinity?

My gender is trans. I used to be a woman and now I play the character of a man. Masculinity is something I always had, since I was little. It's emphasised more now because people read me as a man. Emphasised isn't the right word. Being read as a man who is masculine has boxed me in actually. It's made it harder to feel trans, queer, to feel me.

3. What do you want to communicate through your choices?

 I want to communicate all parts of me, femininity, masculinity, queerness, brownness, transness... I want people to be able to see that I am everything at once. And proud. It takes a lot of confidence to cross those boundaries as a brown trans person, and often I don't push the boundaries because I have to keep safe and looking 'man' for a day is unfortunately one of the safest ways to look.

4.How has your style/fashion evolved? 

As I said, I've always dressed masculine. I always liked boys clothes, plaid shirts, jeans, boots. Baggy clothes that would cover my body. Since I came out as trans, and really figured out what that meant, worked through passing, privilege and keeping safe, I became so much more comfortable with how I could express that through style and fashion. For so long, I had this idea of what I should look like. I should look like a man but not just any man, lads, hipster dudes, gym bros - I was fed that these are men to aspire to, the masculinity that's valued. But then I realised these men are nothing like me and I'll never be anything like them. My masculinity is brown and queer. So I stopped looking for someone to look like. Coming back to my roots, my brownness and honouring my heritage instead of running away from it, has also influenced my style massively. It's only recently I've started wearing bangles, bindis, and kurtas and felt okay about it. It's different to when I was wearing these when I was a little girl, so different. Being able to feel trans and feel desi is so empowering. Being able to be visibly trans and desi is even greater. 

5. How would you describe your relationship to clothes?