Tailor-Made

The first set of designers to feature on the portal includes Wendell Rodricks,Nishka Lulla,Priyadarshini Rao,Tanya Sharma,Rinku Dalamal and Yogesh Chaudhury,plus the portal’s private label. This will be followed by a new name that will be added every two weeks (the portal will offer only western pret). Each of the designers’ collections will have close to 30 styles,with limited pieces being manufactured to retain exclusivity. “Masaba Gupta and Neeta Lulla’s lines will be launched in December-January. Neeta’s collection celebrates Indian cinema’s centenary — she will be interpreting Bollywood influences since the ’20s through a line of contemporary western wear clothing,” reveals Sharma. She also plans to have on-ground events at campuses,music festivals and fashion stores in the future.

Nishka points out that the set-up works for both consumers as well as the designers. “This arrangement allows me to to concentrate on my own label as well as on the portal while consumers can shop from their homes at attractive prices,” she says.

Sharma recounts that the seeds of the venture were sown in 2011,when she met Rajani as part of a meeting between IMG-Reliance and Apparel Export Promotion Council of India. “The idea was to channel the latter’s surplus staff and raw material towards the manufacturing of affordable designer wear,” she recollects. While that meeting didn’t produce a formal association,the thought lingered on in Sharma’s mind. It began to take shape last October,when Sharma and Rajani got other partners on board.

Interestingly,the designers are not getting any signing amount for their sketches; they will get a stipulated share from the sales revenue for their respective lines. Rodricks reasons it’s high time Indian retail took to this path. “Fashion should be within the reach of the masses. I firmly believe online retail is the future of fashion,” he asserts.