We’re looking forward to introducing you to Liz Hartman Sitaraman. Check out our conversation below.
Hi Liz, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
How we start our day is so important to set the tone- and of course not every morning can be perfect, but I really try! Having ownership over my mornings is one of the reasons I have fought so hard to continue working for myself, I only remember running out the door in a frenzy every day when I was working a 9-5 at Ralph Lauren years back. Right when I wake up I like to do some light stretches and pranayama breathing exercises, this helps softly ease the transition from dreamworld to real world – even if you only have 10 minutes, I so recommend starting your day with pranayama! When we can master our breathing patterns, stress is reduced throughout the day automatically. Afterwards I have breakfast and a coffee with my husband. Before he runs off to his work, before my calls begin, we chat about whatever is on our minds and it’s one of our most beautiful rituals- just simply having breakfast together!
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Liz Hartman Sitaraman, I am an American who has been living in New Delhi, India for almost 7 years now. While I did move here after marrying my husband Ashwath, my love affair with India- particularly her textiles- began years prior to meeting him. After studying fashion at Parsons in NYC and working in technical production roles at major fashion companies such as Kenneth Cole and Club Monaco, I wanted to take a step back from corporate fashion and learn more about handmaking and artisan craft. I’d been transfixed by Indian fabrics since seeing them at various “Little India” shops in Pittsburgh where I grew up, so I found a fashion organization to go work for in Ahmedabad, Gujarat in 2016. I traveled around the country learning about embroideries, handlooms, blockprinting and so many other crafts- that was it, I’d fallen in love, I couldn’t see myself working in corporate forever after that. In 2019 I started a fashion brand called SWIATLO (meaning “Light, to Illuminate” in Polish, a nod to my matrilineal heritage). We worked with all-womens stitching units to make kaftans from vintage sarees, and dresses from Gujarati ajrakh blockprinted textiles. My absolute favorite part of the business was the product development: working with artisans, textile sourcing in the markets, ideating designs, making the pattern blocks and fitting the garments. That’s what I had done in my corporate roles: technical design and product development. When you run a business, however- there is so much more that one must do to be successful! We all have to be content creators now in addition to traditional marketing and branding. There is also the financial business aspect to it- monitoring physical product, deciding how much product to order, and exporting to stores. Maintaining a DTC website while cold-calling for B2B wholesale orders. Running a fashion brand as a one-woman show was burning me out, although I still had so much passion for the magic of making fashion! It’s my favorite part and I didn’t want to give it up, so Liz Hartman Fashion Production was born. Since I moved to Delhi I’d already been doing sourcing and technical work for other brands, just via word of mouth informally, and it felt like the right time to make this a proper consultancy business. There is a clear need for overseas brands to have someone here in India that understands the quality of goods they are expecting, who can do management of their garment production to ensure correctly made top-quality product and timely shipments. My days now include a wide variety of tasks like rummaging through markets for the perfect lace trim, checking in with vendors to ensure fabrics will arrive on time, sharing instructions with factories for clarity that everyone is on the same page about new designs and lots more. I do my best to steer my clients towards sustainable solutions especially as India has so many options for natural fabrics and low-carbon handwork details, I personally believe it’s the best country in which to make the most beautiful fashion collections.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
During my corporate life, I felt I always needed to be “on” and productive constantly. Perhaps this was a product of the times as well, all those quotes about “grinding” were going around and everyone wanted to be a Hashtag Girlboss, including me! I had big dreams and I thought the only way to accomplish them was sprinting towards the finish line all the time. And perhaps at that time I did achieve a lot and I was able to do it- I was young, in my 20s, and fiercely determined to succeed. Now, about a decade later, I ascribe to a more balanced life. I still center my work as I’m extremely passionate about what I do- fashion is so powerful for our confidence and self expression, and I love being a part of the magical making process. However, to give my all to my clients, I purposely schedule in time to take care of myself too. My work is not a sprint anymore, it’s more of an intermittent marathon- and I have days of hard concentration sandwiched between a day of relaxation here and there. Burnout is real and can happen too easily, especially with that “grinding” mindset! Balance is a better bet in my book.
Is there something you miss that no one else knows about?
Social media is a highlight reel, so it’s not shocking to say that my instagram shows only the best parts of living abroad in India. I do feel grateful to have ended up on this very non-traditional life path and somehow it’s worked out so far. But I miss home achingly, on a regular basis and I wonder if I will ever live there again. I didn’t really mean to move away, I just met this amazing man and I didn’t have anything I cared about going on back in New York at that time, when I met him in 2019. Truth be told, I’d been in NYC for a decade and I was over it- over working in corporate, squeezing into the subway every morning, paying NYC rent and NYC healthcare costs. I thought, why not, I’ll stay in India and start a business. I did not think anything through and I look back at that time with amazement like- who just up and moves across the world on a whim like that? I do not regret it and I would not change it. But I miss the feeling of being in New York (there’s nowhere else like NYC). I miss my family in Pennsylvania, I miss the simplicity of speaking in a language I know and being understood by people generally. I am learning Hindi and I am okay at it, but my accent is still pretty bad. I miss living in a walking city and taking a stroll anytime I need a fresh perspective.
I do go to the US every year in the summer which is lovely, but it is always different. It reminds me of that quote “You can never go home again,” by Thomas Wolfe, meaning we can’t really ever return to a place and have the same experience because both both the place and ourselves have changed as time goes on. The USA I left in 2019 is not the same place now, and that’s just the natural way of things. My family members are all getting older, as am I. Maybe one day my business will grow, I will have a team in Delhi and I can be back home more often, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to live there permanently again. Our roots are pretty deep here now with both our working lives, my business and his independent Delhi-based law practice. We have easy access to healthcare here, our rent is very affordable, I don’t think I could give those things up. But I will always be American at heart and dream of being home often.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Is the public version of you the real you?
Yes, despite lots of pressure from the fashion industry to be “cool”. Although I think that in any industry, we all feel pressure to be a certain way in our careers. We want to be accepted into the cultural norms of whatever sector we are working in so that we can succeed. However, I am very silly as a person. I take my work seriously, but otherwise I like to laugh and outwardly enjoy life which is often not the norm at fashion events. There will absolutely be well-dressed finely polished people ready to sneer at you for being a silly goose. But you know what else I found? There are other people who want to be fun and silly too, and they will find you. The best way to find your people is just allowing yourself to be as you are, and accept that yes, some folks might think you’re weird or uncool- but that doesn’t matter. The community I’ve found from trying my best to just be myself even against immense pressure to “act cool” is priceless and has brought immense value to my life. Additionally, I work in production- at the end of the day, for success in this aspect of the industry, no one really cares if you’re an oddball as long as you get the work done right.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
Scrolling social media and ingesting large amounts of useless random information! I’m not sure how it works, that our minds can get so stuck on just swiping along reels and posts, but I do find myself immersed in it sometimes when I have a moment to myself. My algorithm mostly just gives me funny videos or animal content now, so it’s not stressful, but I do fear it’s quite addicting and has absolutely no return on my time investment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lizhartmanfashionproduction.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liz_wanders/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-elizabeth-hartman-sitaraman-2283597a/?originalSubdomain=in
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@swiatlofashionandtextilesf6877
Image Credits
They are all my photos!
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
