Book Extract: A Stitch in Time

Meena Bindra’s journey from early childhood in Delhi, in a business family, to her life as a naval wife from the Armed Forces and thereafter her moving towards being an entrepreneur, are all captured here very simply and captivatingly.

The story is an interesting peek into how from such a humble start from home at a time when women in business was not the norm, she managed to carve out a place for herself in the fashion industry.

A Stitch in Time is the story of a woman who was able to overcome her challenges when all odds were against her, through sheer perseverance and grit. Alongside, it captures the story of the Indian fashion industry from its inception to the phenomenal growth as we see it today, through challenges, opportunities and much excitement.

She was also a part of the beginning and growth of the organized retail industry and became an integral part thereof. The book captures her long journey as an entrepreneur, and the changing times of the fashion and organized retail industry in India through four decades, with its trials, tribulations, challenges and successes.

Unlike the currently popular trend that ghost writers step in to “help” an author, Meena Bindra chose to work on her memoir by herself. She did not hire any ghost writer and was clear about what she wanted to share and not share. She hand wrote and it had to be typed by her office assistant. She is very old school, and supremely articulate. In fact, her editor confirmed that Meena Bindra was particular about every word, and they had to convince her every time on any editorial changes that needed to be made in the best interests of the story.

Meena Bindra was born in a business family in Delhi and graduated from Miranda House, Delhi University.

She married an Indian Navy officer when she was 20 years old, and was a housewife for 20 more years before she decided to start a small venture from her home.

Meena started designing Indian salwar kameez when there was no fashion industry to speak of, and has been a pioneer in making the salwar kameez a strong alternative to the saree across India. Her company BIBA is renowned for its elegant and contemporary outfits available at affordable prices.

The following extract has been taken from the book with permission from the publisher.

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By now, Siddharath had a big say in all the decisions made at Biba and kept bringing in new ideas to implement. Slowly, over a period he was able to shift 90-95 percent of our production to Delhi at much better costings and delivery schedules. Our Mumbai vendors had got used to working at their own pace and mostly getting the rates they demanded. They were not very willing to change and were slowly becoming redundant, as now we were enforcing better discipline and accountability among the vendors. Siddharath, in his first year of operations, brought in the new and much-needed changes, thereby earning his stripes and a seat at the table, rather soon at a very young age. As he was getting more involved in the business, his MBA was receding slowly in the background.

Shoppers Stop was a professional organization run by certain rules and regulations. During the late 1990s, their team started pushing us hard for more commission and we were at the receiving end of their demands. We didn’t seem to be getting along professionally with the then buying team, leading to a reduction in our business volumes with SS, which had a demotivating effect on us. Ironically, this was also a time when SS was going through a tough period and challenges of their own. Looking back, it seems that the stage was set for a perfect clash.

Siddharath came up with a solution that he felt might help us continue with the SS account. He felt that if SS gave us space in their stores and allowed us a free hand to run it, then we might be able to produce much better results. We would then have the freedom to manage the sales, selection and replenishment of the stocks rather than the SS team that was handling it until then. He felt it would lead to higher sales and greater efficiency, and then maybe we could continue at the same commission, avoiding frequent negotiations for an enhanced commission, which was becoming untenable. Sanjay and I also agreed with him on this new way of operating, and decided to take it forward with SS.

During one of their store openings in Pune, Siddharath and Sanjay met up with Ravi Raheja (the owner of Shoppers Stop) and shared the dilemma and difficulties they were facing with the SS team. They suggested to him a new business model that would require us to have our own retail space in their store. We would select and replenish the stocks as we thought fit, and the space would be managed by our staff. This new model, we thought, would greatly enhance our sales, as we would keep a closer watch and replenish what was selling fast, which the present model didn’t allow. We felt it would help our own staff become more accountable to us and lead to better sales from the same area. It did sound like a win-win situation for both of us, and then maybe we could continue at the same commission without worrying about a fresh negotiation of commission at the beginning of the new season. This way we could ensure the expected sales for SS from that area. Mr Raheja did see a lot of merit in the proposal and agreed to take it ahead after discussing this with his team.

Multi-brand stores were still very new. There were frequent changes in their operations if a certain model was not working as envisaged, since there were no role models to follow or emulate. There were no brands that one could learn from. We had to create and visualize our own journey, as there were no examples to follow. One had to learn the harder way at times by taking a big risk. Shoppers Stop liked the idea of giving us our space in their store to run, but what followed were very intense negotiations for the minimum guarantee (MG) of sale or commission for a month. The SS team bargained very hard and asked us for what seemed a very stiff MG of Rs 72 lakh a season for spaces in their counters for the four existing stores which SS had at that point in time. It did seem a tall order, but we decided to take the plunge knowing that we might end up losing some money if we did not meet the required MG and all our hard work and effort would go in vain.

Retailing was a new experience for us. From being wholesalers, we had become retailers. We had to quickly hire our own staff and manage these counters. For the first three months, we were nervously monitoring our sales to see if we were meeting our targets for the commission. We were initially trailing way behind, but as we dug in and became more experienced in handling retail, we started getting better results and were now catching up with the MG. We, however, finished the first six months falling short of the MG by Rs 8–10 lakh.

Shoppers Stop was experienced enough to waive off the amount, seeing the upward trajectory in the last three months and not wanting to disrupt it. So we continued with the format. Had they deducted the Rs 10 lakh at that point, we might have been forced to walk out of the arrangement. Later, we kept achieving much higher sales than the MG required, till the point that it finally became irrelevant. This was a big inflection point for us. We were one of the first to try out the shop-in-shop model, which was later followed by all other departmental stores or other brands. The shop-in-shop model helped us in many ways. It brought us closer to the consumers and we started getting to know our customers better. We were learning the intricacies and the demanding nature of retail. As wholesalers, we were not so mindful of the seasons and the importance of the right merchandise at the right time, things which we learnt by handling our own counters. As retailers, we realized the importance of time—if our product did not reach the shelves in time for a certain occasion, the time was lost. Biba as a brand evolved from wholesale to retail. Our whole thought process was changing and we were becoming more consumer-oriented. The wholesale business still continued because a lot of new traditional shops, saree shops and other establishments started stocking ethnic wear as part of their catalogue. So, there were always new customers added to our list of buyers. Seeing the success of this model, it was adopted by all the departmental stores for the other brands in their stores, and this became the new normal. Little did we know that through this we had pushed the shop-in-shop concept at departmental stores in the Indian retail industry. Today, that is the primary way for brands to do business in departmental stores.

Another big new initiative taken by Biba was movie merchandising. We were supplying our garments to Pantaloons in Mumbai at that point in time. Sanjay went to meet Mr Kishore Biyani, the owner of Pantaloons. Mr Biyani had just finished producing a movie called Na Tum Jaano Na Hum (2002). It was the debut film of Esha Deol and the second of Hrithik Roshan. Sanjay entered Mr Biyani’s room and found a suitcase full of clothes from the movie in the room. Pointing towards the suitcase, Kishore-ji asked Sanjay, ‘Banaoge, karoge?’, thereby implying that he wanted to know whether Sanjay was interested in replicating these garments to sell them with the tag line ‘From the sets of Na Tum Na Jaano Na Hum’ as the movie’s merchandise. Sanjay, of course, accepted the offer readily, as he was always looking for new marketing ideas. Movie merchandise was not sold officially till then. Before that, everything from Bollywood had to be bought from the grey market, which was a completely unorganized market. The film producers those days didn’t market their movies as it is done now. This was a novel idea, as this kind of promotion for merchandise hadn’t been tried earlier. We felt that the brand would get more exposure if it was associated with a movie or a film star. The producer of the movie was very happy, as he was getting a lot of free publicity with Biba putting up the film’s posters in prominent places in all malls across India wherever there was a Biba store; the posters were also put up in all our stand-alone stores. It was a win-win situation for both of us and was almost like a barter system.

The movie clothes were sent to Delhi for me to decide which options would be sent for manufacturing. We were short on time and had only two months in hand to order the fabric and manufacture the garments. I decided on a few garments that looked easy to produce. There was one white chiffon garment with white embroidery and lace; it looked easy to replicate since it had schiffli embroidery. Seeing the practical aspect of being able to make this garment soon, I chose that design and we made about 800 SKD suits in that design. Seeing the large quantity we had manufactured, we got a little nervous that we might be stuck with this design. So to be on the safe side, we decided to sell it a little cheaper than our normal pricing formula. When the movie merchandise hit the floors, we were in for a shock. The white chiffon chikan suit was flying off the racks from day one, and we were getting frantic calls for more of the same design from almost all our stores across India. Seeing the success of the design, we decided to work on the pricing of the suits, as we had sold it cheaper than our normal pricing formula. The volumes for the design were growing, and with larger quantities of fabrics, lace and embroidery material required, we were able to bring the pricing down. This design was an unprecedented success. It remained our bestseller for eight to nine years, and one person in our office was designated to just take care of this design.

Once, when we met Mr Biyani, we jokingly told him that we probably had made more money from this design than he might have made from the movie, to which he answered ruefully, ‘I wish I had asked you guys for a royalty for this design.’ For years, we were so busy making it in white colours that it never occurred to us to try this design in other pastel colours. On the suggestion of a London buyer, we started making it in many pastel colours and it did exceedingly well in all the colours, giving it a new lease of life. We did try to create other designs like it, but they never got the kind of success that the white chiffon suit did. I still can’t unravel why a particular design sells the way it does, and why certain other equally good-looking designs don’t come anywhere near them. Probably like the title of the movie, Na Tum Jaano Na Hum!

It was the first time a brand bought the rights to sell movie merchandise officially. We sold the suits as ‘From the sets of Na Tum Jano Na Hum’. It was like a barter system. After the first movie, we were inundated with offers of tie-ups with lots of movies. Many producers were keen to tie up with us for this very successful barter system. We did take up a few offers and ended up doing 10 more movie projects. Biba suddenly had Bollywood endorsements. Over the next five years, we had 10 movie projects - one was Devdas (2002), for which we brought the original movie sets into the Pyramid stores at Pune and at Pyramid Crossroads mall, Mumbai. It was a blockbuster movie; there was a lot of interest among customers to see the original sets of the movie. Sets from the movie were lifted in their original form, brought in the store, and left for customers to view for a fortnight, generating a lot of interest and curiosity among them. The main stars of the movie - Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai and Shah Rukh Khan - all came to Crossroads mall at Haji Ali, Mumbai, to promote the movie and the sets. There was a huge crowd of around 20,000 people. This kind of marketing was unprecedented. It gave us a lot of mileage since we had the posters of Biba with the name of the movie and the stars endorsing it. These marketing initiatives were making Biba very well-known and giving a lot of exposure to us; the brand seemed to be arriving. They didn’t always turn into great profits, but we were happy to consider them as marketing expenses.

Meena Bindra A Stitch in Time: The BIBA Story Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 2024. Hb. Pp. 216. Rs 595