From Manish Malhotra to Met Gala: ‘Paper Queen’ Dreams Big 

At the young age of 19, Apeksha Rai from a small village Sudor in Panna district, Madhya Pradesh, has become a social media sensation with needles, threads and newspapers. Popularly known as the ‘Paper Queen’ on MX Player, Tikki, Josh and YouTube, Rai dreams to design for Manish Malhotra and create the world’s most beautiful dress for the Met Gala – ‘Fashion’s Biggest Night’. She takes old newspapers and turns them into breath-taking silhouettes. Ball gown, peplum, sheath, shoulder wedge, empire, asymmetrical or A-line… She has stitched almost every silhouette.

Rai takes her just 1.5 to 2 hours to create the most complicated of the designs. From Deepika Padukone’s Met Gala gown to Nora Fatehi's mermaid look, she has recreated them from newspapers. “Since I was in school, I used to turn my mother’s old saris into dresses for myself. Then I started watching YouTube videos and learnt to make different silhouettes. A few years ago, I enrolled in a government skill development scheme, and learnt to sew and stitch. I don’t have any sewing machine, as I can’t afford it. I used to collect old newspapers from scrap dealers and make dresses out of them,” she tells Outlook, while sitting on a sofa in a 1 BHK flat in Delhi that an agency has arranged for her stay. Rai is in the city to collaborate with a video creator. She is accompanied by her father Hari Shankar, who is a farmer, and her elder sister, Neelam, who shoots all her videos and helps her with creating the dresses.  

Her father, who is supportive of her career, tells Outlook, “I was married at 16 by my parents, and my wife was younger than me. Even now, girls of Apeksha’s age are married off in my village. Though our relatives and people in the village often pressurise me to get the girls married, I want my daughters to do something. I never imagined that Apeksha would get so famous at such a young age.” He recently opened a small grocery shop in the village, so Apeksha no longer has to go to Katni, a town-village with better connections to big cities and more supplies too. Whatever products he brings to sell at the shop, be it Holi Pichkaris or packets of chips, Apeksha makes a dress out of them.

Apeksha had 2 million followers on TikTok, but back then did not know how to monetise her craft. When India banned the Chinese app, a lot of new apps entered the market to take its place. These apps offered her money to post videos. Now, she has 1.3 million followers on MX Player, 1.2 million on Josh, 406K on Tikki and 108K on Instagram. At present, she earns a decent amount every month. “I don’t tell people how much I earn from the videos. My mother tells me to keep it a secret as people might get jealous and malign my image. I come from a place where if someone irks the big shots, the latter won’t hesitate in chopping the person into pieces and throwing them in a farm. Some relatives never leave a chance to pass negative comments like, ‘she is always busy with her phone, god knows who she talks to’. Sometimes, I get discouraged with the abusive comments on my posts. People call me skinny and raddi waali (scrap dealer). But, if I stop what I do, how will I move forward in life? I just want to help my family to move to a better place,” Apeksha tells Outlook, while showing reels of her newly painted home.

“At first, I used to upload videos without giving a thought to the background, thinking people who like my work will see my dresses and not my walls. Still I started saving money to get my house painted. Now, the videos look better. I am already thinking of getting a black screen for better background, and I am also saving for a ring light.” Showing her iPhone 12, she says, “I bought this from my earnings.” When asked if she would like to live in big cities like Mumbai and Delhi, she replies rather assertively, “I don’t want a city or a village life. I want to live in a kasba (town). Though, I would love to work in Mumbai and Delhi.” Her father explains, “When the first COVID-19 lockdown was announced in 2020, the relatives who worked in the city suffered the most. Some people from our village returned after walking for days, and brought the virus to villages with them. No one wants to live in the cities anymore.”  

While Apeksha’s elder brother is a compounder for a surgeon in a hospital at Panna, her sister Neelam is preparing for SSC after graduation in Botany via correspondence and in her spare time shoots videos for Apeksha. When asked about their daily routine, both sisters reply in sync, “We wake up early, do manjan (brush teeth), complete household chores and cook food, and then make dresses and videos.”
  
Currently pursuing her second year of BA (H) from a private correspondence college, she would love to study at the likes of NIFT, but the thought feels far-fetched. “We can hardly afford a regular college. Though I liked studying science in school, I couldn’t get admission to a science course,” she speaks with a hint of regret.

Srishti Malik, a fashion digital communication specialist and a designer based in Delhi tells Outlook that “Apeksha’s concept and techniques are brilliant. The girl is bright and a fast learner. Fashion design students learn to make silhouettes from paper in the foundation year. Even we designers initially begin with paper to create a silhouette. Learning design professionally can help her create original designs that she can sell as a freelancer and fund her studies.” For Apeksha, however, learning from a big college is a far-fetched dream. “I have heard about NIFT, but to live and study away from home would need a lot of money. It’s easier to become an influencer than a fashion designer. I come across lavish stitched fancy clothes, and dream of designing dresses to sell. But old newspapers are cheaper than cloth,” says Apeksha.

Can Panna’s Paper Queen design with Manish Malhotra and make it to the Met Gala? Only time will tell. For now, she rules millions of hearts with her craft, which in itself is a dream for many girls across rural India.