Chakori, a bird, is enamoured by the moon. It waits for the shining rays of that full aeon for its eternity. In the same way, Neha Kedia, an ardent entrepreneur, is enamoured by the elegant reflection of oneself in the fashion one carries throughout the changing seasons. She is also on a mission to encourage the protection of birds and their habitats.
Neha shares, “Last year, on the World Migratory birds Day on 9th of Oct’21, we launched our Bird Feeding Program. In this program, we are sending bird food packs to all our customers through which they can feed the birds for a week. We want the parents to teach the children to take care of the birds around them by inculcating the habit of feeding them.”
Neha feels that children are like free birds who must be nurtured in elegant, comfortable, and eco-friendly habitats. Combining her two missions into one concept, she ideated and launched Chakori Wear, a sustainable clothing brand exclusively manufacturing in the kid’s wear segment.
Neha reveals, “We believe in comfort, skin-friendly clothing, ease in carrying fashion and elegant reflection of oneself. We manufacture all kinds of ethnic and cotton casuals for kids between 0-12 years of age.”
True to its mission, Chakori Wear specializes in skin-friendly natural clothing that is comfortable, breathable and enjoyable for the kids. Neha made a detailed study of the clothing industry market and identified the disparity between the customer needs and the market offerings. She began Chakori Wear to offer good, simple and kids friendly clothing collection.
Neha adds, “Our latest festive edit is full of bright colours with handwork followed by our Gulbagh collection, which uplifts embroidery fashion in kids. All our clothes are in extra soft cotton so that the kids can carry them all day long.”
The Strengths in Her Wings
Chakori Wear, as a brand, is leading in the kids wear segment. During the whole journey from manufacturing under private labels to creating a brand on her own, Neha figured out that when it comes to kids, parents struggle to find comfortable skin-friendly clothes for their little ones. The clothes that kids prefer to wear these days, irrespective of the occasion, foremost, must be soothing and healthy for the skin microbiome.
As a conscious clothing manufacturer, Chakori Wear is very particular about the sustainable fabric model where Neha uses pure cotton, hemp, bamboo or linen fabric and linings that are beneficial to the health and the skin. Neha has completely eliminated fabric procurement which uses hazardous chemicals or toxic colour dyes.
Flying in the Moonlight
Neha opined that she had always aspired to become an entrepreneur since her post-graduation days. After four years of corporate banking experience, she accumulated funds to bootstrap her organization.
During her research, Neha figured out that many women aspiring to start their own garment businesses lack the huge initial investment and the risk appetite of investing in several SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) and higher MOQs (Minimum Order Quantity).
She identified a gap there. Regardless of the numerous upcoming MSME and other Govt Schemes for empowering women’s entrepreneurship, very few women are ready to go against the patriarchal odds and bet on their capabilities.
As a women entrepreneur, Neha started Chakori Wear to give a customized manufacturing service to domestic women, striving to build up their micro brands and other budding entrepreneurs who want to start their private garment labels with a smaller MOQ in various categories.
The company works on low margins to keep the price offered equally competitive. Neha mentions having seen women doing real business and outperforming many traditional brands regarding designs, quality and price. Neha feels, “I firmly believe that when these skilled women grow, I too grow with our brand Chakori Wear.”
Migrating Through the Storms
Neha mentioned that challenges are not just initial, but they go parallel with any entrepreneurial journey. She expressed, “We, at Chakori Wear, like to see each challenge as an opportunity. Challenges bring discomfort, and discomfort initiates the change that brings growth.”
So, Neha and her team at Chakori Wear have never been scared of challenges but have instead held their heads stronger and higher. In the fashion industry, exclusivity is known to be a big challenge. As e-commerce is becoming the ruling platform of shopping behaviour, every new design launch, fabric quality and prices are very transparent. This has resulted in a huge spike in the competition levels.
Chakori Wear provides on-job training to the semi-skilled women labour force, empowering blue-collar women. Neha adds, “This has been a major task because of the prevailing lack of awareness and huge dependability in decision making.”
She pointed out that maintaining consistent quality standards and regularizing checks at every step, from procurement of fabrics and dying to cutting, stitching and packaging, is critically monitored. Neha expressed that getting the right individual for every role has been a big challenge in the whole manufacturing process. “However, we are staying ahead of them by staying and innovating together,” says Neha.
Flocks of Innovative Spirits
Chakori Wear, apart from being a sustainable kid wear brand, does contract manufacturing for the B2B brands but has also been hand holding a lot of microbrands and inspired people (especially women) to get into business.
Neha exerted to have always seen beyond profits and thinks that is where their clients and employees have stood by the company since the very beginning. Referring to their customers, the focus is mainly on quality and sustainable material, enhancement in work of local artisans, including embroidery, hand painting, block printing and more. Neha’s focus is primarily on maintaining exclusivity, quality standards, and meeting delivery deadlines for clients. She focuses on training, peer learning, incentivising innovation, and a WABI-SABI meet greet and practice culture considering the employees.
Neha states, “Our upcoming collection “WABI-SABI” meaning ‘embracing imperfection’ aims on hand-painted clothing for kids in cotton. During the sale program of WABI- SABI, we aim to give masks and colours to kids with each product so that they can flaunt their imperfections and be proud of it.”
Enhancing Indian Ethnic Fashion
- Chakori Wear is known for making sustainable fashion available at affordable prices.
- Zero Effect Zero Defect Policy: According to Neha, Chakori Wear is a ZED certified organization that ensures quality control is so apt that there are minimal returns hence achieving client satisfaction.
- No wastage: They use all their waste (Katran) to make potli’s (bags), keychains and other innovative products are given as pleasantries when the customer crosses a threshold cart value. The best part is the semi-skilled women workforce makes these products. These women are so creative in their beautiful motifs that sometimes it is hard to replicate.
- They use a lot of local artisan work on their linens and hemp, enhancing Indian ethnicity on clothes via embroidery, hand paint, block-printing, gotta-Patti work, Jaipur zardozi and many more.
Bird’s Eye View
Neha thinks that, with the kind of support that the Indian Government is providing today to all the budding aspirants, there shouldn’t be any second thought about entering or delaying the idea of starting one’s own business. To establish and grow it, consistency and business discipline are the key. First, ask three questions to the self,
- Do you love the business you are getting into?
- What value are you adding to the existing ecosystem?
- How can you do things differently, even if it is the same business model?
If one has the answers to these three questions, one should not let go of being an entrepreneur.
Bringing the Future of Sustechnobility
Neha thinks that the future is of technological sustainability, where tech will create a more sustainable environment. She revealed how Chakori Wear is embracing this Sustechnobility.
Neha says, “The first step is digitizing shop floor data, which has rapidly improved our factory performance.” The RFID tagging/Barcode/QR Code has made it really easy to track inventory, thereby helping in the procurement cycle.
Chakori Wear has yet to install IoT (Internet of Things) sewing machines, as training the workforce to be equipped with such technology is currently complicated.
AI (Artificial Intelligence) and BI (Business Intelligence) have left no areas untouched. It has made things easy to get customized reports and stock and sales projections. It has helped efficiently store the sewing machine settings for repetitive setups for all machines as and when required.
“Technology is constantly growing and making our lives easier, but at the same time, training manpower for the same is a challenge too,” concludes Neha.
