One fundraiser with my pals, you’ll never need another cent. – Bruce Wayne to Harvey in The Dark Knight
“One tour of your home is all Fabindia needs to sell their stuff.” I joked to Ishita calling her Fabindia’s unofficial brand ambassador. Let’s take a tour of Ishita’s home that is a handbook in styling, entertaining, and decorating on a small budget.
About the home
Who lives here: Ishita Sudha Yashvi, her sister Umang Vanshika, mum, grand mum, and three female dogs – Biskit, Julie and Hazel. Yes, it’s an all feminine household, with a continuous influx of people all through the day.
Location: Delhi
Years lived in: 2
Type: a rented duplex bungalow comprising 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and 3 balconies.
I caught up with Ishita one Sunday night to get a glimpse of the person that has taken the decor world by storm.
To the decor tribe on Instagram, Ishita Yashvi (@ishitayashvi) needs no introduction. For the rest, she is a Delhi-based woman donning many hats: co-founder of Cross Border Kitchens, an influencer and a marketing professional.
With a little coaxing from her friends, Ishita made her Insta account public this January, and as they say, there’s been no looking back. The overwhelming acceptance and love she has received for her genuineness and ingenuity in engaging with the audience shows in the numbers. The phenomenal growth can serve as a masterclass on how to grow your following multi-fold in a short span.
It’s no wonder people stalk her account for her magnetic personality and a ray of positivity in our otherwise mundane lives dotted with traffic snarls and incessant whining.
Ishita hung up her corporate boots spanning a decade and half after spinning marketing tales for firms such as DLF, and most recently, Forrest Essentials. Along with three of her school friends, she founded Cross Border Kitchens early this year that operates three kitchens currently. I had the pleasure of tasting their biryani from Biryani Central recently and got to say they turned us from biryani-haters into biryani-lovers.
Ishita’s Fusion Indian Style
Walking into Ishita’s home is akin to visiting a Fabindia store. I don’t know about you all, but I love to visit their store at least every few months – to stop and stare at their styling, to admire and appreciate the textiles of our country, to take it all in and to feel good. That’s my meditation.
Decoding her aesthetic sense during our conversation, Ishita came up with the term ” Fusion Indian” to describe her decorating style. She explained, ” you won’t find intricately carved furniture or colorful embroidered textiles from Rajasthan or Gujarat in my house. It’s traditional, comfortable, and has an unmistakable Indian stamp on it.”
Ishita enjoys buying mostly from local vendors and is a big advocate of handmade stuff from Dastkaar – Nature Bazaar. She says most of the house is decorated the same way as her room while her sister’s is more quirky and modern.
“Decorate your rental. Don’t wait to buy a home.”
Ishita says
When you come back from work, you should love the place you are coming home to. So many of us hold back on doing up our homes thinking we will do it when we buy it. But, it’s a big investment.
I wanted to break the myth that a rented house can’t be decorated on a small budget. I feel good when people share videos replicating my ideas of a plant corner or using vegetable crates as a shelf.
Promoting Businesses Started By Women
The two sisters, Ishita and Umang, were raised to be fiercely independent by their role model mum, who continues to work even now. In our illusive times, where everything is measured as stats from friends to likes, it is not often that you see someone generously promoting small women-led businesses that match her sensibilities, on social media. It is perhaps this belief in using her influence to support good causes that has not gone unnoticed.
Ishita’s shopping haunts:
Floor lamps: all over and Khan Market in Delhi
Rugs: Fab India
Accessories: Good Earth, Dastkaar Nature Bazaar, Zara Home.
Planters & furniture: custom made or local market
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Ethnic and modern mixed well in required proportions to create masterpieces.
Wow.
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