The Master Tailor With an Italian touch

Rajpuria,today,is perhaps the sole exclusive individual shirt maker in India who imports his fabrics and accessories from Italy,thread from Germany and sewing machines from Japan and Germany. He has groomed some 15 skilled tailors who have been working with him since 2001 at his Behala unit,which itself is a heritage house that belonged to the famous Roys of Behala. When he set up the unit at Behala in the late’90s,some of the best in the business from Italy collaborated with him.

“The best Italian brand representatives like Cotonoficio Albini having been convinced about my passion for shirt making extended a helping hand. They,however,set only one condition that my manufacturing unit has to be located in an old style heritage structure and not in the usual factory shade. I engaged brokers to buy this heritage property where I now produce about 13,000 shirts annually,” says Rajpuria.

He has over 1,000 loyal customers and his signature shirts are available at some of the top shops in New Delhi,Mumbai and Hyderabad under brand names like “Brunito,Vergani,Corsini and Valentino.” A major part of his products are custom-made while his exclusive store in Alipore,opened by Sourav Ganguly in 2005,always has a stock of 2,500 shirts. His USP includes finest fabric,perfect fitting and classical collection for corporate wear,office wear,evening and party wear. The price ranges between Rs 1,800 to Rs 9,000 per shirt. He has a turn over of Rs 1 crore per year.

Today,his clientèle includes,among others,legends like Sachin Tendulkar,Sourav Ganguly,Brett Lee,Sanjeev Goenka and the late RP Goenka,corporate heads of McDonald’s India,KFC,Usha Martin,Emami,Dabur,Hyatt,Simplex,Mani Group,Sureka Group,Khetawat Group,NK Realtors and many more. “When RP Goekna was alive,he used to buy his designer kurtas from me,” recalls Rajpuria hastening to add: “And when Sachin came to Kolkata for the IPL,he called my son,who is now picking up the threads.”

Rajpuria was born in 1937 in a traditional Marwari family of traders/retailers in clothes. In 1955 when he graduated,he was asked by his father to take charge of the Burrabazar shop called Mohanlal and Co. Rajpuria though not very keen initially,steadily built a custom made tailoring unit alongside the cloth shop that grew in popularity and the outlet began to have a steady queue of customers who took a fancy to his shirts. “My USP then was specially designed boxes in which I used to deliver the orders. In those days,around 1959,when the tailoring charge for a shirt was Rs 5,I used to charge Rs 10. There was no dearth of customers and through out the year the minimum waiting period for stitching shirts from my tailoring unit was 30 days.”

His passion for quality shirt designing takes him to Italy every year. When sourcing abroad was rare,Rajpuria started visiting Italy twice every year and developed personal equations with textile houses. He himself took training and imported the best of linen and fabrics exclusively for his clients. “Even now I visit Italy several times a year to know the colour forecasts for the year,to get a taste of design and fashion in vogue and serve my clients back home with an Italian touch,” says Rajpuria with a smile.