Conscious designs

As she steers her fashion business through a fast changing environment, dong re puts sustainability at the core of her creations, write spa van la ll

Anita Dongre smiles with characteristic warmth as the screen comes to life. She’s seated in front of a vibrant Pichwai wall, her burgundy outfit and dark-rimmed glasses making her appear like a picture framed within the Nathdwara artisanal work that frequently finds a reflection in the lehengas she designs.

The 57-year-old hasn’t been meeting anyone at all, so we’ve settled for Zoom. “I don’t want to take a chance,” she says. Staying put at home, Dongre has taken on a business challenge of a lifetime. “I work like crazy, from 9.30 am to 6 pm, Monday through Friday,” she says. “I read on Saturdays and do nothing on Sunday.”

At the time of this virtual meeting, most stores in Maharashtra, particularly Mumbai, where Dongre runs her retail outlets are still shut. In other words, business has skipped a beat, with revenue sliding by at least 40 per cent, she tells me. “We are present online but fashion means physical stores because India is still a very touch-and-feel market, and when people don’t go out, they don’t buy as many clothes.” Well, certainly not designer clothes, the kind she and other biggies of Indian fashion create. The Anita Dongre label is, after all, an occasion-led brand, while sister brand, Global Desi, is casualwear.

Not one to be daunted, Dongre says she still went ahead and launched multiple collections that were in planning pre-covid. “Ode to Bhuj, for instance, was an artisanal collection planned before the pandemic, which we went ahead with, and it received an amazing response. It’s all hand-crafted.”

There were, however, some changes. “Touchwood, marriages were still happening,” she says, “and we were busy with wedding orders but the lockdown made us leaner, led us to edit our collections better, conserve fabric, and resulted in self-growth and learning.”

Business hasn’t been crunched to the point where the group needs to raise fresh funds. They had raised equity from New York-based General Atlantic six years ago. Anita Dongre, the company and the person, have both thrived under bright lights and celebrity-infused fashion shows. “But I haven’t exactly missed the social circuit during this period,” she says, as she asks for tulsi chai for herself, while I prepare a double shot of Nespresso coffee.

“Online sales,” she muses, “became a saviour and we are upgrading all our platforms.” The pandemic has triggered the urgency to go omni-channel, with new points of sale and new customer relationship management. “It’s all going to be revamped and by year-end we will see new websites (for all three key brands, Anita Dongre, AND, Global Desi) with strong integration between the warehouse and the frontend,” she says, taking a sip of her healthy tea.

Having quit caffeine entirely during the lockdown, she finds life runs more smoothly. “I had a headache for the first few days because I consumed caffeine (as tea) for decades, but I find it’s part of a lifestyle change that is based on reducing everything to simplicity.” She went from eight cups of tea to three, and then to half.

Dongre is an out-and-out Mumbaiite. Her childhood was spent in Bandra; she attended the Duruelo Convent High School and then the SNDT Women’s University in Juhu where she did her thesis on designer Giorgio Armani. “If not for my grandparents in Jaipur, whom I went to meet every year, I would have been a boring Bandra girl,” she says. “I was shaped by those two childhoods in a very interesting manner.” And by “my immediate family — my siblings and parents — who have been a strong source of strength,” she says. “I wouldn’t be the person I am if it weren’t for their backing.” Her father was in the textile trade but his business had wound down by the time she was starting off.

While she earlier admired the likes of Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, now it’s people like Stella Mccartney and anyone leading sustainable fashion who excite her. “I was anyway moving towards sustainability, and the pandemic made me realise that we have very little time to make changes, so I am thinking about sustainability in everything.”

As she drinks her flavoured tea, she adds philosophically, “The theory of a better life is almost always described by simplification.” The reduction-is-simplification formula applies to her work, her home and diet, with priorities being the environment, veganism and minimal wastage. She even wants to get her logistics partners to shift to electric vehicles and the two cars in her home to go electric, but admits prices need to rationalise first.

The common theme between her home and office is green. “I can work outdoors on the terrace in both places.” Dongre moved out of Bandra to Kharghar a few years ago, while her office that used to be in a factory in Andheri relocated to Rabale even earlier.

She built her factory with French windows and “miles and miles of open spaces”. She says, “I work most of the time without an air conditioner, so I am grateful we invested in a well-ventilated, open, sustainable, green space near verdant hills.”

Health tops Dongre’s list. She is strictly vegan and abhors fried foods, often opting for a homemade chivda snack with pumpkin and sunflower seeds, peanuts, gram, cranberries and raisins. “I will send you a bottle. It’s my go-to snack and is so healthy.”

Does she ever jump into the kitchen? That’s a rare occurrence, she tells me, and if she would, it would be for a special occasion. “Maybe for the Dalai Lama, Greta Thunberg or actor Joaquin Phoenix. They are supposedly all vegan as well.”

Our conversation is momentarily interrupted by loud barks that come from her golden retriever, Bella. She has two dogs. The other, called Liza, is the one who is usually getting bullied. “My heart mostly goes out to the underdog — always,” she says.

The pandemic has been brutal, destroying lives as well as commerce. “I’m hoping and praying we are spared the third wave. That’s what makes the business of fashion so hard to predict and prepare for,” she says. But she thinks life will get much better by January, and that it will go on to being back to great by the second half next year.

By now, the barking has gotten louder and Dongre needs to go save one of her pets from the other.