In the present age of Startups, ( Hyderabad is gradually becoming a great hub for it) it’s difficult to find a qualitative products platform. Even more so difficult, in Fashion space. With the multitude of options, be it franchise stores or online portals, the competition is super tough. Within these circumstances, here comes a Hyderabad-based Designer Fashion website, which offers the most eloquent hand designed products and the costs they deserve. The brainchild of a Shruti Kushu, an avid fashion blogger, and YouTuber, this Fashion portal is not just about products and clothes, but about expressing yourself in the most eloquent way possible. We, therefore, decided to converse with Shruti and get to know more about Hyderabad’s Latest Fashion Portal – The You.
To start off, what exactly is The You? How would you probably define it within the present age of numerous online portals?
So Basically, The You is a designer western wear Brand. The difference is that this is not a General Multi-brand Online retail store like Myntra etc. This is an Exclusive Designer Brand/Label or you can say Affordable Designer wear.
What prompted you and your team to perhaps choose the fashion line to launch a vehicle? Was it a common interest or was it based on some sort of market research then? What was the process of starting The You like?
As a Kid, I was fond of fashion and trends and everything related to it. Then while I was in my 12th grade I gave the entrance test of NIFT(National Institute of Fashion Technology) And I got into NIFT in 2011. In 2012 I Started planning for my own brand/label that I should be starting as soon as I graduate. Then in 2013 I came up with a Brand name, got my Domain booked, Created a Facebook Page. At first, I used to put all my college assignments which include Clothing and Fashion Trends upon the blog. Then in May 2015, As I graduated I started making some collections and Putting them online. Presently, I’ve got my own workshop and we do brand new collections every week. Coming to the team, I had no team when I started. Even now, I’m still the one who takes care of things but then a couple of masters got added recently.
May we know about the team behind this fashion website? What do you think makes your team click? And who would you say is the centrifugal force behind this enterprise?
There is No team As per now. Perhaps, we will be building a team soon. However, I would like to definitely add this – without my family’s support and encouragement, I couldn’t have done anything.
Now, what do you think is your USP? Say, if I’m an average customer, who is looking for something fashionable to wear, what would make me come to you guys, letting alone Myntra or Voonik?
Coming to our USP As I already mentioned above The You is a Designer western wear Brand. So everything we make is different, is on trend and affordable as well. Not to mention, we are a House of Limited Editions.
In your journey of starting an online marketplace, what has been the toughest to do? Any stage or situation where you thought of diverting to other ideas? If yes, would they still be something related to fashion?
Starting a Business is risky. Be it Online or Offline. And NO Business takes up in days or weeks. It generally takes months to do so. And yeah being a Solo Entrepreneur without any Partners and taking care of everything creates stress and I got a lot of it. So I took my passion and created my blog and my Youtube channel to take some leisure for myself and get out of the stress.
With fashion constantly changing every day, how do you guys ensure that you keep up? And one would notice that the pricing of products is structured to appeal to only a set category of people? Was it deliberate to perhaps focus on the niche buyers?
We Always keep up with trends. Magazines, Hollywood Celebrities, WSGN and some Fashion Forecasts help us to Constantly change with the trends. And coming to the pricing We are affordable in our Category. We belong to Designers Category. I believe there are Categories Such As Designer brand/Label , Brands. If you Ask me the difference between the both, A designer brand makes exclusive clothing (like 2-3 Pieces per Style) and A brand gets clothing done from a manufacturer of in-house manufacturing. In both the cases, they release a minimum of 500 pieces per style. This way the costing of a brand is lesser compared to the designer brand/label. Well, some brands are a way too expensive. That’s because of the brand value they have in the market. And we believe we are affordable in our Category as we make Limited editions, Designer styles, Unique Products etc.
Personally, you maintain a blog and a YouTube channel again related to fashion. Where do you think your passion for fashion started at? And was a website always in your scheme of things?
I had a passion for YouTube and blogging since I was in my 2nd-year of NIFT but I had no guts to start up something which no one has started in Hyderabad, with no good information about the industry. And the passion had basically started by looking at a blogger from Mumbai.
How would define the fashion scene in Hyderabad as, Say when you compare it to Bengaluru or Mumbai? What are the basic differences you see within these cities in terms of designing, thoughts, customers, and innovation?
Well, Hyderabad has a long way to go compared to Mumbai and Bangalore in sense of Fashion. People here don’t really adopt changes that easily. They want the same black dress that they are wearing since ages. Experimenting with fashion is a sin in here. If someone experiments then they get to hear a lot of backlashes. Hopefully, this will change in time to come.
Lastly, where do you see The You, say 5 years down the line? What’s the one thing that you want to immediately do within your enterprise? Also, to someone who wants to make a move into this promising market, what advice would you give them?
Ahh.. This question always makes me feel motivational. The long-term plans are to expand our business in major cities in India in the form of Store outlets. And the short term plans are to Release our collection in US, UK, and some more Foreign countries through our online portal. And The Advice I want to give people who want to join this industry is Do not Enter if there isn’t any passion or love towards fashion. Because you don’t want to do something you don’t like in your own life.
So that was, The You, a fashion portal with elan. You need to follow it as soon as possible. Go ahead and check out their Website and Facebook page.
