· THE BOUTIQUE EXPERIENCE ·
Our Story
Before there was a store, before Instagram, there was a suitcase and a phonebook. She'd moved to Bangalore after getting married and brought clothes from Kolkata. She knew what she had was good. She had no way to prove it to a city where she knew nobody. So she started calling women out of the phonebook. Strangers. Inviting them to come look at her collection at exhibition stalls she set up with her teenage nieces helping hang and fold.
The first customer of the actual boutique was a salon stylist she'd spoken to that same morning. She was "On top of the world". And she's told that story every year since. With the same face.
· SHREE VAIBBHOV COLLECTION EST. 2006 ·
The conversation has always been the whole deal
Mamta has never told a customer something looked good when it didn't. She'll put the more expensive piece back and hand you the right one without blinking. She worked out early that people remember the conversation where someone was honest with them and made them feel looked after. That's what this business- Shree Vaibbhov Collection - was built on.
What two decades in Vijayanagar, Bangalore taught us...
The boutique experience
The boutique experience was always different. You sit down. Someone brings chai. Forty options have been pulled from the back and eliminated already. You're only shown three. All you do is nod yes or no, with someone honest enough to say none of them are right if that's the truth. This is simply never the case with boutiques, where the staff are trained to treat customers well, build a relationship with them and really understand them.
Indian ethnic wear
Indian Ethnic Wear has and always will be trickier to shop for online- the industry remains among the biggest unorganised markets simply because it involves dealing with specific fabrics, delicate patterns and custom fittings. Trends may pass with designs, but this category was always designed for Individual style, representing art forms in stitches, dyes, patterns and cuts. And it's why this requires a more expert eye and knowledge about both- the customer and products.
Trust building with you
Most retail environments don't have the patience for such an experience. The staff are hired to move product, not to know you, and you can feel the difference inside thirty seconds. That's why nobody looks forward to shopping anymore. Most retail environments don't have the patience for it. The staff are hired to move product, not to know you, and you can feel the difference inside thirty seconds. That's why nobody looks forward to shopping anymore.
We're building it for fifty people first.
Walking out with one thing you're actually certain about. That's the experience we're trying to put online. Partly for the nostalgia of it, and partly for the thing itself. A shopping experience that already knows what you've bought, what you have coming up, what we'd genuinely pick for you. Experienced staff and, soon, stylists you can speak to properly. We're building this for fifty people first. If you buy Indian ethnic wear and this is the part that's been missing, we'd like you to be one of them. Write to us, visit the store, or sign up for the waitlist below.
Join the waitlist— Khushi Dassani