Fashioning Change

FableStreet’s AYUSHI GUDWANI, designer-influenced AMRITA THAKUR, and fashion writer SOHINI DEY are quietly shaking up India’s fashion.

- Varun Rana

SIZING UP THE MARKET

Ayushi Gudwani, Founder and CEO, FableStreet

How is it that a 36-year-old with no formal training or past work experience in fashion has become – in just over four years – one of the most important voices in the fast-emerging DTC fashion market in India? For Ayushi Gudwani, the answer lies in data. More precisely, in the collection of it.

An engineer from NSIT, Gudwani earned her MBA at IIM Kolkata, and later consulted with billion-dollar companies as part of her job with McKinsey & Company – for seven years between 2008 and 2015 – spanning the oil and gas, public health, and banking sectors.

It wasn’t until 2016 that she turned her analytical vision towards the Indian fashion retail landscape, egged on by a lack of the good quality, well-designed workwear she herself had experienced. “Jumping into doing FableStreet was very strongly a business decision,” she says. “Big names such as Zara and Marks & Spencer have their supply chains and manufacturing, and have built international brands out of India, but there are no global brands headquartered here.” She asked herself: “What will it take to make this happen?” In the context of FableStreet and workwear, it all pivoted on one key factor: Size.

“You look at all the international players such as H&M and Uniqlo… they bring international sizes to India. So I knew that our approach would have to begin with the customer. Sizing is a very important part of that,” she adds. But it wasn’t easy, at least in the beginning.