These boxes later served as a sort of preparation for the art of prop styling — a career, she says now, “I didn’t even know existed.” After graduating, Patel took a job at a Philadelphia design store that stocked a highly curated collection of international design magazines. “I remember looking at them and thinking, Someone puts these things together [within an image] — and that's what I want to do,” she says. She launched a freelance styling business with a friend and picked up TV commercial gigs. Her first love, though, was print, and print meant New York City.

Patel’s next collaboration with Bloomist will be a textile collection rendered in khadi, the handspun fabric made famous by Mahatma Gandhi as a symbol of Indian enterprise and independence. For Patel, it’s a potent connection to her heritage as well as to a favorite aunt, whom she credits with instilling a love of textiles and vernacular handicrafts, vessels in particular. "She taught me to appreciate the hand of the artisan and all the nuances it imbues, an alternate perfection,” Patel says. “In my teens, I started collecting bowls of stone, earthenware and brass and loved wearing clothing made from handloom textiles including humble one-of-a- kind khadi pieces.