Anita Dongre: A Powerful Fashion Businesswoman

Anita Dongre is nowadays one of the most famous Indian Designers. She built an authentic fashion empire with three design labels: her signature label Anita Dongre, AND, Global Desi.

Recently, she has been nominated for the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award by Ernst & Young. 

How did she become a businesswoman of Fashion?

Since, she was a child, she always wanted to become a designer in the fashion industry. She used to spend time in her grandmother’s house in Jaipur and she was seduced by Rajasthan with these colourful markets, architecture and the people. The place created an impact on her and a love for design and fashion. Just after graduating from SNDT College in Mumbai, she started supplying ready-to-wear to small stores in the city.

Then, she began to create a collection of clothes that she really liked. Obviously, the collection resounded with the young women who were open to experimenting with new outfits: western outfits. However, like every new designer, she encountered some problems with the shops that she supplied to - a lot of them were not open to the concept and the collections. So, she decided to start her own business. This Indian designer began to work at home designing for friends and supplying to little shops until her father offered her the possibility to start a small factory of her own which had grown more and more.

For Anita Dongre, the most important was creativity because it means constantly re-inventing and innovating herself and her creations, while keeping her signature design aesthetic. Her ideal fashion design is understated elegance and always offers the consumers “accessible luxury” inspired by Indian things and techniques, and by Rajasthan.

To succeed, she always stays organised, creative, and runs her fashion labels like one would run a corporate business - taking into account that fashion is very dynamic, with new trends and new styles coming every day, so she has to be a step ahead in the game. Also, another important key of success for her is to be passionate about what you do and to remember that creativity is constantly work in progress.

Anita Dongre has been successfully doing it right by opening a flagship in Mauritius and expects to realize her dream project - to move the brand headquarters to a bigger facility in Rabale, Navi Mumbai. This would make her company the first Indian fashion house to have its own centralised production hub.