Leaders

Some people don’t care about social stigmas and never settle for fate. They are courageous to follow their hearts and pursue their dreams. They are audacious in building businesses and inspiring aspirants to chase their passion. In this edition, we introduce our readers to one such persona, Niharika Raut founder of Around The City – a conscious slow fashion brand for women for everyday wear. She shares a lot about her company and her journey in an exclusive interview.

journey and the prior industry experience that you bring to the table.

My entire education has been in fashion. I did my BA Honours from Nottingham Trent University in Fashion marketing and branding and my MA in Fashion Supply Chain Management from De Mont Fort University in England. It was a no-brainer for me to work in the fashion industry. I love the creative aspect of it, makes me genuinely happy. I have worked in fashion shows, fashion expos, pop-up events and more, when I was living overseas. It gave me first-hand experience with how things move in this industry. Later, after finishing my post-graduation, I did social media marketing as a freelancer for over a year and simultaneously started my work on Around The City.

What motivated you to establish Around The City Shop? Tell us about the underlying idea behind the firm and some of its most unique features.

While I was working on a thesis for my Masters in 2019, my topic was based on fashion sustainability and its awareness among Indian consumers. The primary research made me realise the gap in the Indian market. Indian consumers were fixated on buying from fast fashion brands, as they were more popular, accessible and cheaper as well. But fashion is among the top few polluting industries in the world and fast fashion highly contributes to it. I identified that gap in our market and wanted to launch my own brand which caters to all young women and to their daily needs without damaging the environment.

Around The City is a slow fashion brand that highly focuses on being mindful, from sourcing bio-degradable and environment-friendly fabrics to packaging made of recycled, recyclable, and bio- degradable materials. The digital printing we use on our fabrics is GOTS-certified ink and is completely non-toxic. We use AZO-free dyes in our fabrics. These are the steps we take in our production, also we only manufacture smaller units per drop. We are a slow fashion brand, so we place orders to our manufacturing unit on a very small scale to avoid mass production. We believe in being conscious, and mindful and still give trendy, chic pieces to all fashion lovers.

What are some vital features of your expertise as an entrepreneur?

I would say that consistency is key, it works very well especially when you’re starting out new in any given field. The habit of being consistent about everything just helps so much in achieving those goals even though they are smaller goals at the beginning. Also, I’m a very patient person and that skill of taking it all in even though something is not going as per plan, greatly contributes to an entrepreneurial journey and it has definitely helped me. An excessive amount of controlling or getting fixated on something doesn’t help, I mean I learnt very earlier on that sometimes things take its own course and that is okay. As young entrepreneurs, our focus and energy should be on things that we can actually do better from our end, every day and the rest will fall into place.

“At around the city, we are constantly finding ways to design new styles, play with earth-conscious fabrics and make outfits which don’t need much dolling up to do”

In your opinion what are some of the most significant milestones that you have achieved throughout your professional journey? What has been the driving force behind your success as an entrepreneur?

Honestly, we were not expecting such a great response especially when the pandemic was still lurking upon all of us at the time of the launch of the brand. Nonetheless, we successfully got so many organic orders within a month after the launch and it all felt so surreal. It was definitely a mini milestone for us and all the effort gone into the launch totally paid off. I’m still just a year old into being an entrepreneur so I can only say this, for now, one must keep going and doing what one like to do. That inner voice should be your biggest driving force and just keep listening to it, it always helps.

What would your advice be to young women and girls aspiring to become business leaders and entrepreneurs in the future?

Just follow the tune of your own mind! Listening to different opinions, suggestions, and perspectives is always good but you know yourself the best so in the end, you must lean into yourself and take the cues that your mind and heart tell you and just go for it. Taking a calculated risk is an integral part of being a young entrepreneur and if we don’t take that initial plunge, we may not ever know what strength we hold and what lies in front of us. So taking a leap of faith should be something we should normalise more in today’s times so that we can have more young leaders and entrepreneurs in this country.

Niharika Raut, Founder, Around The City

Niharika is working towards future proofing the fashion industry by bridging the broken value chains such as pollution, wastage, and environmental threats.