WEAVING A LEGACY

FASHION DESIGNER SABYASACHI MUKHERJEE WANTS HIS BRAND—WHICH JUST COMPLETED 25 YEARS—TO OUTLIVE HIM. AND HE HAS TAKEN A HOST OF DECISIONS TO ENSURE THAT.

- VINOD NAIR

ACCORDING TO THE old adage, slow and steady wins the race. That is often forgotten in this age of instant gratification. However, the proverb could aptly describe fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee's mantra for business growth. “If you grow quickly, you also disappear fast,” says Mukherjee, whose brand, ‘Sabyasachi Calcutta’, turned 25 this year.

In 2021, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL), part of the Kumar Mangalam Birla-led Aditya Birla Group, acquired a 51% stake in the brand. “I don't want something to happen to my brand if I am incapacitated,” says Mukherjee, adding that the move protects the brand for posterity. The designer explains that a business has two “fundamentals”—hard skills and soft skills. While hard skills are easy to transfer (“as quick as transferring data”), transferring soft skills—“the culture and the ethos” of a brand, sometimes takes a decade, he says. “I told myself that by the time I'm 50 or before I'm 50, I will sell a majority stake, because I do not want to be in a situation [where] I sell too late and people cannot transition the company,” says Mukherjee.

“We are going to take the long and slow route, but when we grow, we grow exponentially,” he says. “I need to grow, establish and deliver a business to this country that is going to stay beyond my lifetime.”

That is why he stayed away from promoting himself as an individual. Mukherjee is convinced that brand identity is critical for its sustainability. “Most people don't know that Chanel is owned by the Wertheimers or who owns Hermès, yet the brands are very successful... I want Sabyasachi to be known as a brand and not as a person so that tomorrow, if I slip out and somebody else comes in my place, the brand will continue to be successful.”