Drape Me Gold: An online boutique offering customized clothes for your needs

Drape Me Gold is a Mumbai based online boutique founded by Meghna Pandey. They specialise in handcrafted, customisable clothes for women and kids.

 

The idea was to create a brand that offered customised clothing without hurting your pockets too much.

We got an opportunity to talk with  Meghna, the founders of Drape Me Gold and see what she has to say. I am sure her interview with us will inspire you.

 

 

Give a brief info about your startup?

Drape Me Gold – western dresses with an Indian twist, is an online boutique store based out of Mumbai offering handcrafted, customisable clothes for women and kids using fabrics indigenous to India. We love working with handlooms with ajrakhs and Ikat being our favourite fabrics.

 

 

Tell us about yourself, your previous jobs/ventures? What were you doing before this startup?

Started in 2016 by Meghna Pandey, a post graduate from SPJIMR in entrepreneurship. After completing her education, she worked with Marico – Kaya skin care brand for about 6 years, working in various roles in training, operations and the IT department. When motherhood came calling she decided to quit to raise her family but the itch to start something of her own was already in her mind.

 

 

What made you start your startup and what problem does it solve?

As someone who was fond of comfortable yet stylish clothes she felt there was a huge gap between what was being offered by the brands in the malls and the designer clothes whose price points were not appealing to a wide audience. The idea was to create a brand that offered customised clothing without hurting your pockets too much.

 

 

 Where is your startup based out of? Why do you think that is the best place for you?

we are based in Mumbai but being an online entity, we started selling via Facebook only and then went on to include Instagram too before the website was recently launched.

 

 

As a startup founder, what are you paranoid about? What keeps you awake at night?

scaling up successfully is what I am paranoid about the most. Always thinking about the way ahead

 

 

Who are your competitions and how are you better than them?

Though the competition in the clothing industry is high, what sets us apart is the choice to the end user to customise the dress / blouse. Our USP is that one can customise the clothes as per their choice making each creation unique and as per ones own style and preference. We are known for our perfect fitted quirky blouses and comfortable indowesterns.

 

 

How hard is it to have a work-life balance as a startup founder and how do you manage it?

I think being a mompreneur is one of the most difficult jobs but there is so much inspiration that one derives from others success stories. The most important part of maintaining work life balance for me has been to allot fixed timing for work and trying to completely switch off when giving your family time.

 

 

Have you raised funding? If yes, then we would like to know the details. If no then please tell us if you are looking to raise.\

No, this is a self funded startup.

 

 

What’s the biggest misconception people have about you? Why do they have that? What’s the reality?

I think the biggest misconception people have about successful people is that they think its mostly luck. Few people see the tears, handwork and pain that goes behind making something successful. Also no one knows about the mistakes and failures that are just ours to learn from.

 

 

What gets you excited about this company?

The growth potential of our company and the thrill of making new designs, seeing happy faces is what makes us excited and keeps us going.
Tell us how a day in your life looks like? Your schedule for a day right from the time you get up till you hit the bed at night.

My typical day is switching roles between a homemaker, mother and entrepreneur. Day starts with getting the child ready for school, breakfast for the family. Once the house is empty and chores for the day over is when the transition to the entrepreneur starts. The day ahead is then divided into going to the workshop, purchases, client follow-ups and sales. Once the family is back home, the home maker returns too.
Tell us about your team and how did you meet each other?

We initially started with just designer saris and a single Karigar. Slowly through trial and error and market analysis we scaled up our product range to include saree blouses, Indo westerns, mom n me dresses, kids wear and trousseau collection and a team of 5. Going forward we plan to expand to include various designers to our fold to give the customer a complete shopping experience.

 

 

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