About Dastaan

Dastaan / داستان is an Urdu and Persian word which means story, tale; an ornate form of oral history.

About me: I am a Karachi girl living in Sydney, Australia since the last decade. I grew up in the chaotically beautiful Karachi, but having drank the western Kool-Aid, inspired by hollow pop culture, their "democracy" and values of eternally free speech. Many years in the corporate world, two children, brushes with subtle racism and a genocide later, I vomited out the Kool-Aid (sorry for bringing that to your imagination), shrugged off the cape of pretense, stomped to crush the rose (read: BS) tinted glasses and reconnected with everything that was always mine/ours and infinitely more beautiful to celebrate.

With the world undergoing incredible painful changes, Dastaan is a creative project to reconnect South Asian and Middle Eastern cultures and diasporas back to their roots.

We aim to take up space in worlds where we were raised and taught to blend in instead of standing out by taking pride in the languages, symbols and cultural references that raised us. But in a subtle, chill way.

 

Every design I make has to pass the "would I wear this myself" test. It is every day wear -  things I wear to work, used to wish I could gift to friends and got asked where I got it from. My hope is that these pieces are timeless and last you a long time. These designs aim to start conversations with non-Urdu/Arabic readers and a chance for you to share something new back with them.