Hollaback girl!

They called it boho. They called it a festival. They even called it Scandinavian chic. But for us, it has always been culture—woven through ancestry, migration, and memory. Hollaback Girl is not just a campaign; it is a reclamation of what was never lost, only overlooked.

Photography by Vashnie Prasad

When Fashion Forgets Its Roots

In the global fashion cycle, South Asian textiles and silhouettes have too often been stripped of context. Lehenga skirts become “festival wear.” Bindis are marketed as “boho accessories.” Dupattas are renamed as “shawls.” In this process, culture is commodified, detached from the very communities that created it.

For Indo-Caribbeans, the erasure goes even deeper. Our ancestors carried South Asian dress and rituals across the kala pani, reshaping them in Caribbean soil. Yet, too often, we’ve been told we don’t “fit” in the South Asian diaspora—our accents too different, our skin too sun-marked, our fashion too hybrid. Hollaback Girl is our response: a refusal to be erased, a refusal to be told we are outsiders in a culture that pulses in our very being.

Photography by Vashnie Prasad

Ashley Someria and the Power of Reclamation

At the center of this campaign is Ashley Someria, founder of brwngirlmuse_, whose work reimagines ethnic wear not as a trend but as an inheritance. By styling traditional garments with unapologetic modern flair, Someria flips the narrative: what mainstream fashion treats as novelty, she asserts as lineage.

Her vision is simple yet radical—Indo-Caribbeans belong. Our fashion is not borrowed; it is born of history, resilience, and artistry. And in claiming it, we stand in solidarity with South Asians everywhere who have watched their culture reduced to hashtags and trend cycles.

Photography by Vashnie Prasad

Hollaback, Together

Hollaback Girl is not a division but a bridge. It is a declaration that Indo-Caribbeans are part of the South Asian diaspora, even when history tried to write us out of it. It is solidarity across oceans, across generations, across fabrics dyed in turmeric and stitched with memory.

When we hollaback, we do so not just for ourselves—but for every culture that has been mined, renamed, and sold back as fashion. Because heritage is not a trend, it is a legacy.

The Hollaback Girl shoot was directed by Jayne Persaud and styled collaboratively by Jayne and Ashley—a pairing that embodies the spirit of cultural reclamation and creative sisterhood. Together, they merge vision and heritage, grounding every image in both resistance and celebration.