Startup Street: How A Hunt For Workwear Turned Into A Bespoke Clothing Startup

A ‘9AM-9PM’ Clothing Brand

When Dipti Tolani—then a financial services executive in the U.S.—had to attend an unplanned work-related meeting while vacationing in India, she ran into a problem: she couldn’t find anything appropriate to wear.

“I hopped from showroom to showroom, with dwindling hopes that I would find what I required. I just needed a good shirt with decent fabric and a pair of pants. I struggled and compromised over trade-offs between designs, price, fabric and fit.” Tolani told BloombergQuint. “A simple search for a shirt and pants turned into a hunt.”

That was 2016. Three years on, she is now running Salt Attire—a startup aimed at urban working women—that sells customised ‘9AM-9PM’ clothing. And Tolani only has her “hunt” to thank for it. “This was something I genuinely saw a gap in,” she said. “There are already many workwear labels out there for men since time immemorial. But not for women.”

Salt Attire’s main proposition is customised clothing. They have a team of merchandisers, designers and tailors. Tailored clothing is offered at no additional costs. Customers can also decide on individual aspects of the clothing like sleeve length or dress length. “Most of the brands in India offer sizing based on U.K. size charts which can have several fit issues for Indian bodies,” Tolani said.

Customers can either provide their own measurements, or if required, Salt Attire helps them take measurements over phone, video call or even in person.

Bespoke clothing is not new though. Before apparel brands, stores and e-commerce websites swarmed India, it was mostly the local tailor that stitched up garments. Now custom tailoring is making a comeback, slowly, but in a new avatar. Other startups like Tailorman, The Shirt Theory, StitchMyFit and TailoreMade are all offering similar services.

The opportunity is huge. Custom tailoring is a mere fraction of India's $150 billion apparel industry, according to Technopak Advisors. “Currently, the highest penetration of bespoke services is in men’s apparel,” Amit Gugnani, senior vice president at Technopak, wrote in a report. “Bespoke in women's apparel, still remains largely unorganised.”

That, according to Tolani, is the reason for a “phenomenal” response to Salt Attire. “We have customers who keep coming back to us for more.”

The startup, which has 35-40 employees, has not raised any funds yet and is still bootstrapped. Tolani said that they make a gross margin of over 60 percent on every sale. And since Salt Attire does not keep an inventory—all clothes are manufactured on demand—it helps them keep costs low. Tolani said that the startup is already operationally profitable.

It is also moving beyond just clothing. “We have already introduced jewellery,” Tolani said. “We plan to offer other verticals as well which will capture a larger section of urban consumers.”