Mayfair in London is as snooty as it gets.

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Steeped in sophistication, it is home to wine bars, scotch lounges, decadent restaurants, and almost century-old heritage buildings. The Bond Street boroughs, in Mayfair, boasts stores by brands like Alexander McQueen, Chanel and Louis Vuitton. Dover Street, again in Mayfair, is speckled with stores by Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin.

No Indian brand has ever dared to enter this rarefied space, frequented by British royalty and the elite of London society. Until about a year ago, when Varana` , a high-end couture fashion brand from India quietly opened doors of its flagship store bang in the middle of Dover Street, to sell £2,500 for a cashmere coat and £10,000 for a hand-painted and embroidered pashmina shawls. This was as audacious as it gets: sophisticated haute couture garments, embroidered, printed, embellished in India, being sold as high-fashion to a global audience that London attracts.

The journey for Varana wasn’t a smooth one, especially in a refined luxury market like London, and more specifically when couture from India continues to be seen as “kitsch” and of far lower quality in terms of cut, fitting and silhouettes. It helps that the co-founders of Varana—Sujata Keshavan, Ravi Prasad and Meeta Malhotra—had also co-founded award-winning design firm Ray+Keshavan, before the company was acquired by WPP. While Prasad went on to head the Himalaya Drug Company, Meeta Malhotra was advisor to several companies.

They banded together last year to set up Varana, a name they derived from the ancient city of Varanasi. The idea, says Sujata Keshavan, was to take India’s artisanal heritage to a global platform.

Can Varana be India’s answer to French artisanal brand, Hermès? We attempt to get a few answers from Keshavan.

1. How did the idea of Varana strike you?

For 25 years, I had been working on helping other people create brands. At Ray+Keshavan we had worked with industry leaders in different sectors who had built world beating brands.

I used to wonder though, why we didn’t have global brands from India in the B2C space, except for hospitality brands such as The Taj and The Oberoi Group. India has so much richness and depth in textiles and craft, but most of it has stayed within our shores.

I’ve always been fascinated by our textile and craft traditions, and I thought that it would be interesting to attempt to create a brand inspired by this heritage. While I was fascinated by the creative challenge, the business side of retail was a reality I knew nothing about. I discussed the idea with Ravi Prasad who has had an understanding of international luxury brands. He found the concept compelling enough to came on board. It was then that the project actually became feasible. Subsequently, my partner at Ray+Keshavan, Meeta Malhotra, with whom I had been speaking to about the idea for many years, also joined in to handle the digital side of the business.

2. It is fascinating that you actually thought about the brand on a boat in Varanasi.

I had an epiphany while on a boat on the Ganga river, with my son, in Varanasi. It was Diwali night and there were diyas floating in the water and lighting up the banks. It was magical. The concept suddenly crystallised while I was on the boat, and the name Varana presented itself.

3. How would you describe Varana as a brand?

Varana takes inspiration from India’s rich and deep heritage of textiles and craft and re-interprets them using modern design for an international audience. India has probably the largest number of artisans in the world, some of whom have extraordinary hand skills. Our aim is to showcase these skills at their very highest level in products that exhibit exquisite craftsmanship.

4. From where do you source your fabrics? Do you work with independent weavers and artisans, or do you employ them?

At Varana, we create a lot of our own fabrics and then make the garments. We work with independent printers and weavers, as well as with mills who weave to our designs. We also use different types of washes and finishes to achieve particular results.

5. Your aesthetics, while rooted in India, is definitely much more global. Was this a deliberate choice?

The fabrics we make are based on either Indian craft techniques or use the vocabulary from our heritage, reinterpreted through modern design. For example, we have trousers based on the sharara, and balloon trousers that hark back to the salwar. Also full skirts based on the lehenga, but made very modern. We have a multicultural design team in our studio in Bangalore. Indian textile and graphic designers work with Italian, French and Japanese fashion designers. It is a very interesting laboratory of East meeting West.

6. Would you call Varana the first Indian luxury brand to crossover to the global market?

There have been various attempts over the years by Indian designers to take their brands overseas. Shyam Ahuja (a home furnishing brand) was one of the first Indian brands that went overseas. Asha Sarabhai sold her clothes at a store in London many years ago, when I was still a student. Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla retail outside India. And there may be others.

However, I do think that Varana broke a glass ceiling by opening a large four-storeyed flagship store in Dover Street, Mayfair, at the very heart of the world’s iconic luxury district. Nobody has attempted anything of that scale before. London is a world city visited by people from all over the globe. So it was a natural choice for us to use it as a spring board for the brand. Today, our customers at the London store are from all over Europe, America, Canada, Latin America, Russia, the Middle East, Japan, South East Asia, India… from an astonishing number of countries.

7. Your much-talked about store in Mayfair is rather strategically located…

We have a seven-storeyed town house building at the heart of the luxury district of Mayfair. Exactly opposite Varana is the iconic Arts Club. We are just down the road from the Ritz Hotel on one side, and close to Bond Street on the other. We have four floors of retail and stock rooms and offices above. It used to be the McQueen store of Alexander McQueen earlier. It had a dark metallic interior, which we stripped and re-designed completely into a light, airy space, with a spa-like feel. The store was designed by the architect William Russell of Pentagram Design.

8. What are the lessons you have learnt as a Indian brand in the global market? What have the challenges been?

Our first challenge was at the level of the product. While we have unique and beautiful fabrics in India, a lot of them were designed for flat textiles like saris, which are not robust enough to be made into tailored garments. So, we had to make a lot of our own fabrics in heavier weights, looking at considerations such as drapability, hand-feel, etc. Competing at the highest levels of the global luxury market meant we had to make products of superb quality, never before seen in India. It requires a huge amount of effort on a daily basis to maintain our quality standards. We also had to create products suitable for cold climates, which was a challenge as Indian fabrics are mostly suited to hot weather. As a result, we have developed a very strong focus on super-luxurious Cashmere knits for winter.

9. Have you faced negative perceptions in the global market?

We have had to overcome the widely-held perception that “Made in India” is basically cheap and of indifferent quality. People who come into the store invariably think that our products have been made in Italy. They are astonished when they hear that they are from India. Similarly, we had to overcome a lot of prejudice when it came to getting a store. Since there were no known brands from India, landlords were nervous about renting us their premium properties. They feared that we would make a crowded bazaar like store. But now that we have demonstrated that we are capable of something really beautiful, we are inundated by offers from agents offering us properties.

Deepali Nandwani is a journalist who who keeps a close watch on the world of luxury.

First Published:Jun 8, 2018 6:15 AM IST