What happens when a hairstylist and a curator put their heads together?

Some relationships defy neat categories. They are not quite friendships, not exactly collaborations, and yet they hum with a kind of creative electricity that feels sacred. Such is the bond between hairstylist Dwyesh Parasnani and Priyansha Jain, curator, creative director, and founder of Inordinary, a design collectible gallery, who first sat in the former’s chair a little over a year ago.

When I arrive at You Do You Studio on Linking Road in Mumbai, Jain is already perched in the chair, her beautiful black curls damp and sectioned into three neat parts. Parasnani circles her slowly, a tail comb poised delicately between two fingers. They are planning something ambitious today: an ode to Hieronymus Bosch’s enigmatic The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Jain’s scalp has been sectioned into three parts to mirror Bosch’s triptych: the first section represents the Garden of Eden or paradise, the second life, and the final, a chaotic rendering of hell. Tiny locks will be tightly wound around hairpins, haphazardly sprawled across the “hell” section, they explain.

“I want it to feel chaotic,” Jain says, grinning in the mirror. “Like hell broke loose.”

It all started simply enough. Jain had been invited to a party with the theme ‘Celestial Glam’.

“I’m really not somebody who’d go to the salon to get my hair done. It literally started with this party because I was so overwhelmed by the theme,” Jain explains. “I had also just started finally getting into the curly hair routine—the moisture treatments, the masks...”

Since then, they’ve become co-conspirators in a kind of living-art experiment. For every major event on Jain’s calendar including the exhibitions she curates, Parasnani designs a new hairpiece: towering compositions of braids, extensions arching like lines of a Calder mobile, buns so intricately folded they resemble origami. Some styles last a few days; others survive only the opening night before collapsing like beautiful ruins.

Past creations include spiral braided loops that the duo transformed into kooky, loopy space buns the next day, a cinematic bouffant inspired by ’70s Hong Kong, and a cat wig made from steel wool for Jain’s birthday, inspired by Rei Kawakubo’s fall 2017 Comme des Garçons show. Sometimes, the theme dictates the hairstyle—like a ‘Diwaloween party’, where they incorporated a giant inflated balloon filled with red ink into her hair. Other times, the cues come from what Jain is wearing.

“I think the other thing we think about is if I’m going to be in an air-conditioned space or not,” Jain adds. “Because if it’s outdoors and not temperature-friendly, then I prefer not to have open hair at all. I know I’m going to be really hot.”

For the next three hours, I watch them work in tandem. Jain barely shifts, except to tilt her head exactly as instructed. He pulls sections of her hair taut, braiding them into sinuous ropes, anchoring each one with minuscule pins. Occasionally he steps back, squinting, adjusting the placement by a quarter inch.

There’s almost no small talk. They talk instead about form, about tension, about works of art and projects they’ve recently dedicated their time to. “When we first met, Dwyesh would hardly say hi,” Jain recalls, laughing. “I would say he’s a shy, quiet person. But now we talk a bit. He’s not a small talker, though.”

“I find conversations very boring sometimes,” Parasnani adds. “It’s a process. I’m a great listener. But to get my attention, I need a conversation that’s stimulating.”

Their creative process feels almost telepathic. She sends him reference images from Pinterest, Instagram, and Are.na, along with handwritten notes and sketches from her diary. After a bit of back and forth comes the sculpting, the teasing, the pinning, the layering, in sessions that last up to three hours and involve an arsenal of hair gels and sprays, micro-braids, and pins.

Despite the intricate results, they are not rigid planners. “A lot of times he only reserves two hours on his calendar, which is fair,” Jain says. “We start our hairstyle and we’re so far away from finishing it and then his next client walks in and I’m just like, shiiit. Then he multitasks between both of us. It’s a bit mental.”

Today’s masterpiece slowly takes shape: two interconnected braids flowing through Eden that represent the joining of Adam and Eve, merging into the knots that depict the entanglement of life, and chaotic twisties in Hell. Parasnani doesn’t ask if she likes it. He doesn’t need to.

Their connection is intimate in a way few modern partnerships are allowed to be. It’s a collaboration with no contract, no deliverables, only a kind of quiet devotion to the act of making something strange and beautiful—just because they can.

This shared language, however, isn’t easy to replicate. What happens when Parasnani isn’t in town or if Jain is curating an exhibition elsewhere? “I’ve tried asking other hairstylists who’ve worked with me on shoots I’m directing, but they’re usually not interested. Maybe it’s too small a job compared to a full shoot,” she admits. “Now, Dwyesh and I have a rapport which is not established with other people. I feel like we have a language where we are able to understand each other. It’s a little challenging to explain to someone new what I want, and I don’t have that headspace, especially on the day of an event.” In such cases, the default becomes “freshly washed open hair”.

Jain’s reputation for sculptural hair now precedes her. Recently, she was invited to a friend’s celebration with the specific instruction: ‘Please come with a sculpture hairstyle or don’t come’. “I don’t necessarily enjoy that people expect it now,” she confesses. “But I still give into it. There will come a time when I stop. Recently, the last couple of times Dwyesh was travelling, it’s actually been quite liberating to just wash my hair and leave it loose.”

Yet the partnership continues to evolve organically. “There’s obviously only so many hairstyles that will look good,” Jain muses. “I don’t want to run out of ideas too fast. Part of the fun is that we are still trying new things.”

Most styles, Parasnani reveals, are experiments for him, too. “A lot of the styles I’m doing for the first time,” he says. “So, I’ll practise a section on a mannequin to make sure I get it right.”

Ultimately, it’s this spirit of discovery that keeps their work alive. As Jain puts it: “It kills the inner joy when you’re doing it out of compulsion. We do it because we genuinely have the time—and the excitement—to dedicate to it.”

Art Direction by Mehak Jindal