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Hetal Desai started The Indian Ethnic Co. & Lekhinee & Twaara Desai's viral dance reels, helped the brand grow in ways beyond imagination...!
Did you know that Hetal Desai started The Indian Ethnic Co. out of her living room and her daughters Lekhinee & Twaara Desai took her dream forward?
Mothers are the most ardent supporters of their children. They encourage and support their dreams, passions, and any other goals they may have.
However, we rarely hear of children doing the same for their parents. It shouldn’t be rare, in my opinion.
Hetal Desai’s daughters share the same opinion. They recognized their mother’s talent and passion and supported her in her efforts to turn it into a large brand and achieve her dreams.
As you might have gathered from the name, The Indian Ethnic Co sells clothes made from ethnic Indian handlooms. Due to their unique marketing technique through viral dance reels, you may have also come across the brand on social media.
Lekhinee Desai makes videos with her sister and friends dancing while dressed in her mother, Hetal Desai’s designs.
Hetal and Lekhinee Desai, a mother-daughter duo who are both passionate handloom lovers, founded The Indian Ethnic Co. Hetal Desai is the company’s Chief Creative Designer, and Lekhinee is in charge of sales and marketing.
Since their birth, Hetal Desai has never bought a garment for her children Lehinee and Twaraa. She would go to famous exhibitions to find the nicest fabric on the market and sew lovely dresses for them.
She never was a fan of ready-made items from the store. It was always quite basic, couldn’t be modified to her tastes, and the ones she loved were always quite pricey.
Hetal continued to sew outfits and buy ethnic materials despite her lack of a professional fashion education because she enjoyed designing. She would get praised whenever her kids would go out in dresses made by her. Her neighbours and friends began contacting her as soon as word got out.
However, she later gave up her passion without hesitation to devote her time to ensuring a better future for her girls.
Hetal had a lot of time on her hands at 55 after spending 27 years of her life selflessly. She discharged her duties towards her children, who were now 18 and 24 and off to college.
She thought that her life required a larger purpose to look forward to, so she picked up her passion again. She was ready to resume her journey toward her dreams with encouragement from her daughters.
It all began in 2016 with a Rs 50,000 initial investment. Social media shopping was growing in popularity at the time. Hetal and Lekhinee decided that selling through social media would be a suitable experiment because it would not require upfront expenditure.
Furthermore, even if the initial sample outfits they prepared to offer do not sell, Lekhinee and her sister could wear them. They set up accounts on Instagram and Facebook. It was a completely risk-free experiment!
Hetal produced some kurtas out of a small batch of Ajrakh fabric that they ordered from a skilled Ajrakh artisan in Kutch.
The daughters wore those kurtas and took photographs with their phones, which they then shared on Instagram and Facebook. They did not imagine what would follow ensuite!
Within a few days, they were sold out! Customers from all over the country were buying from them. They sold exclusively through social media for the first two years, but the business grew quicker than they anticipated.
Only in 2018 did they establish their website and register their trademark. The website went live on May 21, 2018, and in less than a year, it generated a revenue of Rs 1 crore, even though it was run from only one living room by two women.
Now, they have a fabric inventory of 50,000 meters, a turnover of Rs 6 crore, three full-fledged offices in Mumbai, and a team of 25, working with over 100 master artisans of Indian Handicrafts.
Lekhinee and her Twaraa Desai are classically trained in Odissi dance. As a result, dance marketing came easy to her and her team.
Their videos started becoming viral once Instagram introduced Reels in India. Their first reel alone had over a million views.
Earlier, they used to just sell kurtas, which they promoted with photoshoots. Because they believed in showing genuine women, one of the sisters would model, or they would ask their friends to model.
Their father gave them the idea to use their dance talent in marketing when they were about to launch their sarees. He proposed that seeing women dancing so effortlessly in such complicated garments like saris would be a novel marketing idea to express the handcrafted saree’s features.
The sarees are made of delicate Mal, Kota Doria, and cotton fabric that they’re incredibly easy to carry in everyday life. As a result, they set up a tripod and began filming themselves dancing.
The first reel was on the song Kangana Re from the film Paheli, which became viral after receiving a million views.
Even before they could announce the launch, their sarees- the collection was sold out.
They showcased women of diverse sizes, ages, shapes, and colours. They hope to promote Indian ethnic culture, foster national pride, and celebrate true beauty. It also supports environmentally-friendly fashion.
The Indian Ethnic Co. today has three offices and one studio, employs 1000 craftspeople from all over India, and receives almost 3000 orders each month, or 100 per day.
It is on the verge of breaking the Rs 10 crore revenue milestone, thanks to dance marketing and its unique ethnic products.
In an interview with Bussinessinsider talking about the brand’s future goals, Lekhinee said:
“The idea now is to create a library of sorts for all products handcrafted in India. So, currently, we have a range of fabrics, but now we want it to be a one-stop-shop like an encyclopedia store of sorts, where all kinds of crafts and fabrics are available, and anyone can come and shop from the Indian Ethnic Co. India has so many crafts to showcase, and there are different kinds of artisans who are doing such great stuff. So, we want the entire portfolio of everything handcrafted- that anyone can think of, to be on our website.”
In the future, they intend to provide a full range of products for men and children as well.
Despite having no formal fashion experience, Hetal Desai and Lekhinee Desai created The Indian Ethnic Co. simply out of their love for handloom and all things crafts.
They are one of India’s most popular women’s handloom clothing firms. The Indian Ethnic Co is winning hearts with their designs and their Instagram dance routines.
They might never have anticipated that their creations would capacitate to outfit 3,000 people living in 450+ locations across 19 countries.
Hetal Desai is a true example of how dreams never run out of time or chances. She took advantage of the second chance to make her dream a reality.
With the support of her daughters, The Indian Ethnic Co founder Hetal Desai turned her dream into a brand we all love today!
Image Credits: The Indian Ethnic Co. Instagram
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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