Shahpurjat — a little urban village, located in the heart of south Delhi — is home to a fabulous collection of fashion boutiques and labels. The market, which, in its earlier years, merely met the needs of brides and grooms, has now started to cater to the demands of a niche segment of the society.
This ‘designer hub’, as it has now become, bears witness to footfalls that runs into thousands each day — all here to to experience the market’s unique and vibrant collection of clothing and accessories. With lesser-known designers doing some spectacular work, this market takes the liberty of rendering a different yet successful approach to these new labels.
Bridal to Casual
With the wedding season being the market’s peak selling period, most of the independent designers choose to go with the bridals as their main collection. From Liz Paul, Junne, Ornate to Ankita by Saaj, most claim to have a unique take on bridal wear.
“We mostly do pre-bridal,” said Liz Paul, an established designer who has been working out of this market for the past almost 7 years. “We have everything — from bridal, cocktail to indo-western,” said (Junne) designer. “Our sequins embellished blouses, crop tops and skirts sell the most,” she added.
While women can easily park themselves at any one of the bridal and pre-bridal stores, one may wonder where would the menfolk, who accompanied the women to the market, go. But, Shahpurjat has a place for them too. Here, stores meant exclusively for menswear are also there to lure, impress or simply engage them. “Our collection is all menswear, including casual wear as well the groom wear. So for weddings, we have an entire collection of sherwanis that can also fit well for sangeet and engagement ceremonies. We have everything for every occasion,” said antarDESI Designer Manish Tripathi.
“We have everything from sherwanis to formals, semi-formals and Indo-Western outfits for men,” said the store manager of Unit.
Like Saurabh Kasotia and Ekta & Sonal, which clearly stand apart from the rest, courtesy their designs that are completely handmade and handwoven. “Our collection is mainly Indian casual. We work on natural fabrics and give it a Western look,” said Ekta, one of the designers behind the brand ‘Ekta & Sonal’.
“We have a lot of jute and cotton-based stuff. Everything that you see in my store is nature inspired. It is my biggest inspiration,” Saurabh Kasotia said. He further added by saying, “We basically do all handwoven fabrics — all natural and handwoven fabrics that are developed right from the scratch by our weavers.”
Liz Paul, Shahpurjat
AntarDESI, Shahpurjat
Boots & Buckle, Shahpurjat
Boots & Buckle, Shahpurjat
Saaj By Ankita, Shahpurjat
Saurabh Kasotia Label, Shahpurjat
Second Floor Studio, Shahpurjat
Ekta & Sonal, Shahpurjat
Les Parisiennes, Shapurjat
Consumer Profiling
Mapping the market’s potential consumer profile, many designers seemed to assert that they cater to a niche-segment of the society — to people who are not budget-bound, but are looking for exclusivity and high-quality designs.
“We have a very niche clientage, especially for the people who are into luxury and exclusive stuff,” said designer and owner of the label Saurabh Kasotia.
The owner and Designer of Boots & Buckles, Karan said, “My clientele majorly includes the cream of Delhi, and I also customize for Bollywood celebrities like Fawad Khan, Manish Paul and Karan Johar.”
Also, if you are a bride-to-be, this is THE place is for you. You may not get your perfect bridal lehengas, but you will certainly find your outfits for sangeet and mehendi ceremonies. “Our target consumers are young girls who are getting married, and are looking for pre-bridal outfits,” said the designer and owner of Liz Paul.
The consumers, who stop at Shahpurjat Market, understand that these designers have put in a lot of hard work and most importantly poured their heart into their creations to make them the exclusive designer collections that they have come out to be. And so, they do not look for discounts. They happily accept the no-bargain condition to get their hands on some exclusive and quality work. Jigyasa Arora, the co-founder of fashion store Junne, said, “Our potential consumer profile is of people who don’t bargain, since we have put in of a lot of hard work and do not like to offer any discounts.”
Liz Paul, Shahpurjat
Liz Paul, Shahpurjat
Liz Paul, Designer and the owner of Liz
Junne, Shahpurjat
Karan (Owner and Founder of Boots & Buckle)
Boots&Buckle, Shahpurjat
Saurabh Kasotia Label, Shahpurjat
Saurabh Kasotia, Designer and owner of Saurabh Kasotia
Second Floor Studio, Shahpurjat
Ekta & Sonal
Ekta, co-designer of Ekta & Sonal
Do the Math!
With highly-fashionable and trending fresh patterns, the fashion boutiques of Shahpurjat live by the concept of high quality at affordable prices. Given that the fashion boutiques are concerned with their design aesthetics and visions, the market has divided itself into three segments- womenswear, menswear, footwear and accessories.
The market offers an assorted range in womenswear, which is inclusive of Ready-to-wear, Pret, and Couture Designs. For Ready-to-wear, prices start from Rs 2,000 to Rs25,000, while for Pret, it ranges from Rs10,000 to Rs50,000. Couture collections start from Rs50,000 and can go up to Rs 1 lac or above depending on the material, handiwork and effort that goes into it. “We don’t have a limit; it depends on the customers. If they want heavier or gaudy garments, with heavy embroidery, the price obviously goes up,” said store manager of the label Saaj by Ankita.
The menswear range has also been put under three categories of luxury, premium and base. For the base category, prices start from Rs10,000 and often go up to Rs 15,000, and for the premium, it ranges between Rs20,000 and Rs40,000, whereas for the luxury category, which is inclusive of formal and heavily-embroidered sherwanis, the range is from Rs40,000 to Rs4 lac or even above. “The luxury category is between the segment of Rs 40,000 and Rs 4 lacs, as per the budget and work of embroidery,” said Manish Tripathi, designer and the owner of antarDESI.
Apart from clothing, accessories and footwears are also predominantly offered in the market. Accessories, inclusive of scarves or Jewellery for women, ranges from Rs 1500 to Rs 25,000 while pocket square or cuff-links for men, range between Rs 1,000 and 8,000. Footwear such as formal leather shoes or embroidered party-wear range from Rs 2,000 to Rs 25,000.
No Knock-offs!
Although it is assumed that young and upcoming fashion labels draw design influences from popular high-end designers, such as Sabyasachi, Manish Malhotra or Shantanu & Nikhil, it is nothing more than a myth. Ruling out the concept of knock-offs, these designer fashion labels agree to follow the design aesthetics of the popular designers, but they do not encourage imitation of similar designs patterns. Also, they do customize collection for their clients, but they try to convince them to decide from their collection available in their stores.
“A lot of people come to us for lookalikes of designers like Sabyasachi and Manish Malhotra, but we do not encourage that. We can customize as per your size, but will keep my designs,” said Liz Paul, the owner and designer of Liz Paul. “We do changes in my design, like replicating one of our own necklines from another piece or changes in embroidery or colour story, but only everything available within this store,” she added.
The market is developing.
The baby cousin of Hauz Khas Village, Shahpurjat has evolved as a high-street fashion hub, complete with a number of designer labels. From being a village with tiny little lanes to becoming a full-fledged market place to shop and stop, it has been observed that its growing big. It is now home to a French clothing and exclusive cafes, along with an array of more such outlets opening here.
There are enough indications to suggest that this small place, with fancy fashion boutiques, would soon become the next ‘Hauz-Khas Village’. High quality, better prices and new designs, will most certainly transform this village into a big-trending fashion hub in the future.
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