Matthew Raj Webb

“Behind the Seams” reveals how fashion design has become the unexpected front line where political futures are being stitched into existence. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at India’s national fashion academy and South Asian design networks in the United States, the book exposes a paradox: artists who shape global fashion remain invisible as “ghost designers,” their creativity rebranded as ‘manufacturing’ and ‘tradition.’ Through portraits of designers, artisans, and bureaucrats navigating between cosmopolitan dreams, nationalist mandates, and global labor hierarchies, “Behind the Seams” theorizes how creative workers maintain agency under authoritarian pressures. This work demonstrates that fashion is never merely about what we wear, but about who gets to imagine the future.