Kiran Desai: I grew up in India, so you have to learn a whole new way of doing clothes when you move to the west. Fashions don't carry over, so if you fly between places you will inevitably look wrong in the country you're going to. Definitely going to India you look bad if you go in your western clothes. Everyone comments on how awful you look right away. The sky is different, the street is different, the dust is different – only Indian clothes work.

Heidi Julavits: So do you have both of those wardrobes?

KD: No, I don't. I always look wrong when I go back to India. I feel ashamed of myself when I feel right in New York, because there's something wrong with this place. I'm always stunned when I walk into a party and I find all these women are really wearing little high heels, and girls are dressed in tiny clothes that look really horrible, in fact, and they're so miserable in the cold of winter, wearing tiny little high heels in the snow. These women have no pride.

HJ: Many people see saris as being more uniform, if they don't have an eye for where the differences lie, where personal flair comes in.

KD: That's right. It's in the way you tie them. But also, every tiny community and all the weaving families, they have a code of symbols, and the patterns can be handed down six, seven generations. They're so complex. The wedding sari will have its own special symbols – it's this huge code. They're beautiful. The plants and shells and creatures and birds … I miss that, because in America, you don't have animals all over your clothes. Well, you do sometimes, but I'm not a fan of leopard print.

HJ: Just actual leopards.

KD: I lament having to give up Indian clothing now that I'm here. It's one of the most fun things about being an Indian woman. But it's really time-consuming. All these people manage to have clothes like that because they have servants. With the saris, you wash these great lengths of fabric, then you hang them on huge lines or down your balcony. Then you starch them and then someone stands on one end and you stand on the other end and you pull it to make it tight and starchy. Then it's ironed. So it's a lot of work.

HJ: I never think of saris as being starched. I think of them as being more flowing.

KD: Well, the cotton ones are starched. Traditionally they're dipped in rice water and then starched, so you walk around so stiffly. Then gradually the humidity and sun get to them and they become really crumply.

HJ: They wilt.

KD: Starched clothes also sound so different. I once interviewed weavers in different parts of India, and they were telling me how important the sound of silk is. If two women are going through a door together, and they rub saris, they should make a kssshh. They complained that cheap Chinese silks are flooding the market. They don't have the right sound. It should be rustling.

HJ: Instead of that nylony, slick sound. Do you have recollections of learning what to wear once you moved to England, then America?

KD: I remember starting to wear the most basic T-shirts and jeans and being unhappy in them. If you haven't grown up wearing a lot of jeans, they're very uncomfortable.

HJ: They have grommets on them. That dig into your body!

KD: Why did they become so popular? Remember after September 11, when everyone was terrified that anyone who looked strange in New York would summarily shoot something? Well, my aunt has only worn saris her whole life, and her son told her: "You've got to try to wear jeans." So they put her into jeans and she couldn't sit down. I kept saying, "Sit down," and she'd say, "I can't!" You have to have some sort of self-respect in the end that doesn't alter depending on where you go, which place you travel to. Ideally, I would come up with some sort of uniform, something I'm happy in, that's not dull, but also that I could wear all the time.

HJ: Gustav Klimt used to work in a blue kaftan. It was a painter's smock, and it was linen, and almost looked like a monk's robe.

KD: With exciting fabric, you could wear that with your long johns in the winter! I'm writing a story right now about these women going to visit the family jewellery in the bank – these precious stones mixed with beads and glass. That was your inheritance, and it mattered a lot, as any Indian woman knows. And the grandmother keeps giving it away to the granddaughters, then reclaiming it because she can't bear to let it go because … it's like her stomach is missing. I've seen it so strongly, the jealousy, greed – having to pass on your jewellery, feeling your jewellery is your stomach, in a way. It's that much the centre of your life – your saris, your jewels. There are women in my family – their eyes, their entire expression changes as soon as they're in front of a sari or old jewels they've handed down. Something really old comes up. I remember my grandmother had these jewels, and whenever she had to give one away, she felt like an organ was missing.

HJ: And she had to give it away because …

KD: Because you inherited it. You have to give it to a daughter when she gets married.

HJ: So in the story you're writing, they're going to visit the jewellery in the bank?

KD: Yes.

HJ: That's fascinating – the survival worry that, as a woman, you're only worth what you show up with. Like you have this clothing, and this dowry with these linens, and these jewels.

KD: Yes. I have some jewellery that was divided among all us grandchildren, and I have my grandmother's nose ring. It's huge – it covers your whole mouth. Why don't I wear that?

• Women in Clothes, edited by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton, is published this week by Particular Books