Indira Scott Makes Acai Bowls 'Better Than Anyone Else'

For a fashion veteran who can boast of runway credits like Dior and Oscar De La Renta, model Indira Scott is remarkably down to earth. She'd rather be meditating or hiking upstate than stopping by a swanky downtown New York party. And when it comes to building up her resume, even the most prestigious jobs have to align with her personal belief system. That's why Scott was chosen as the face of De Beers' ReSet program — a series of collaborations with jewelry designers centered around sustainability, with proceeds from the pieces of designers including Jade Trau and Zoe Chicco donated to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Botswana's Stepping Stones International.

"It was divine timing," Scott explains over Zoom. "I've always wanted to work with a jewelry company and I've always admired diamonds as any normal person does." While she held off because of issues like unsustainable mining practices and the history of conflict diamonds, the new campaign was one that offered an alternative. "The De Beers group knew about my activism and personal sustainability practices so they decided to make me the face of [the Reset campaign]. It's been an aligning of stars and just very surreal."

But, just because she may dress herself in diamonds for work, Scott generally goes for something a bit more low-key. "Right now my favorite jewelry is [a pair of] wooden earrings I have from this woman in Africa. She just comes to prospect park with her stand of jewelry that she makes handcrafted by her," she explains. "I found her protesting for Black Lives Matter. We just went off to the side to detox from the protest and just process everything from the experience and we found this amazing woman with the world's best jewelry so it was cool."

Below, as part of TZR's ongoing series Living Well With, Scott shares more about her love of nature, her penchant for meditation, and how to make the perfect acai bowl.

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What’s the first thing you do when you wake up?

Every morning when I wake up I stretch and I smile and I thank the universe for my day.

Smiling is something that I would do when I was little ... I don't remember where I heard it, but I remember hearing that smiling keeps your face looking happy and healthy. So I would always have to practice trying to wake up smiling.

Stretching I learned to love through my years of just being a tall woman and my body getting cramped easily.

Thanking the universe ... it just goes better every day when I connect with the universe and am grateful for everything I have because I feel like it really makes a difference on the days when I don't.

When you have the chance to treat yourself, what do you do?

When I have the chance to treat myself, I love heading to the great outdoors and submerging myself in nature with friends and going on the best hikes the area we’re in has to offer.

What are you listening to these days?

It’s the hardest question. In my free time I’m listening to somewhere between Sade, Sunrom, [and] Coltrane. But then there will be times when it's 21 Savage, Future, Lil Uzi [Vert] as well as VIvaldi's The Four Seasons and Claude Debussy. It’s so hard for me to answer that question. I guess everything. I'm such a multifaceted person that it would be hard for me to just pick one song or even just one genre.

One thing you can’t live without is...

Books. Right now I'm reading Gifts Of Unknown Things, it's this random book I found in this really cute, quaint bookstore in New Paltz upstate. It's about these people that go to this place in Indonesia ... well it's near Indonesia and there’s these series of islands but you can’t find them on a map but this person did. It's kind of like the book the movie The Beach was inspired off of, but it's so good I'm so happy to have found it.

Where are you dreaming of traveling to? Why?

I really want to go to Costa Rica, India or Africa. I hope to make it there soon, universe willing. Hopefully the world changes from what it is today and we can go places like that again.

What’s your go-to secret weapon when you want to look and feel good?

Affirmations. I feel like we all undermine the difference it can make ... changing the inner dialogue we have ... the things we tell ourselves every day. If we go from being so harsh and critical and negative to being positive, loving, and compassionate with the things we tell ourselves in our minds every day it's the easiest to feel better and how you feel about how you look.

Do you have a favorite workout/wellness practice?

Workout [is] yoga. Wellness practice [is] meditation. It's definitely a hard one to conquer because you read so much on it, you see all of this stuff on it, all the things it's doing for other people and then you're just like "how is sitting on a mat and not doing anything but breathing going to change anything for my life?" But you’d be surprised if you actually keep practicing it just like anything else. You just sit there and sit with yourself, sit with your thoughts, listen to your breathing ... practice your breathing, you’d be so surprised by the places it takes you. It's honestly like tripping without tripping. You're just breathing on a mat and it takes you to a bunch of places and those places bring you all the answers you ever needed in your life.

What’s the best piece of relationship advice you’ve ever received?

Don't take how other people treat you personally because they’re doing the best they can from what they’ve been taught. And [also] you can’t control the narrative people choose to have for you in their head, but you can control how much access they have to you and your time and energy. The second one someone told me this weekend upstate, one of my friends. The first one is by Miguel Ruiz [from The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide To Personal Freedom].

What’s a healthy meal you always make/order?

Acai every day all day. I love my own bowls, I feel like I make acai better than anyone else just like it's hard for me to be humble about it. But, going and getting it too, I will do [that] because it's the easiest thing to revitalize myself.

I love coconut, chia seeds. The base oat milk, banana, and the acai packets. On top I like to put chia seeds, granola, blueberries, cocoa nibs, and strawberries.

Do you remember your first big splurge? Do you still own it?

It's actually this year... it's my car. I still do own it. After the lockdown I was like "I can’t do this anymore" and I gave in and I got a car because of all the hikes I like to go on, it's kind of impossible and I’m always begging someone to take me and my friends upstate. I was like "why don’t we just do it ourselves?" So I’m really happy I did that. It's so hard, no one wants to get on the Amtrak.

What’s the small stress-saving luxury you swear by at home?

Meditation. Meditation is my go-to answer for any and all things. I have my yoga mat, some bowls to make sound baths with myself, or if I don’t want to do that and I just want to relax into meditation, I use certain Youtube channels like Brainwave Power Music ... they're really good. Listening to those sounds as well as breathing, having your yoga mat, maybe holding onto a crystal too, really does help. You stay focused.

What are you saving up for at the moment?

My mom’s dream house. I can't wait to get her a place.

One thing you want to go back and tell your younger self?

I would tell myself to believe in myself and that the things that you and the things society tries to make you feel weird about being are the things that make you beautiful and special.