Masaba Gupta - the fashion designer turned entrepreneur to now an actor Queen of Quirk

MASABA GUPTA, 32, FOUNDER, HOUSE OF MASABA

When Masaba Gupta was trying to fill a gap in her life and didn't know what's next, fashion found her. The young designer who made a mark on her own confesses she didn't enjoy studying the course and started enjoying the art of creation while actually working on it. Sharing the same she says, "I didn't want to understand the syllabus or do all the technical bit. I just wanted to get down to making clothes. I think it was in the college graduation show that I realized I enjoy this and want to do a business out of it."

The acknowledgment made her belief much stronger to start her own label. With more than a decade spent in the fashion space, her label has taken many shapes. Talking about the same, she mentions, "We haven't stopped trying to reinvent at any given point in time. I find the brand revolutionary in that sense because I don't think I've ever said that I have had enough. We are always trying to do something new, and we are always trying to represent ourselves differently, which is very important to me." That's clearly visible in how she reacted and took things in her stride when the pandemic hit us all last year. The couturier says, "All of 2020 has been spent running for cover, and I think 2021 will be about picking up pieces and rebuilding from where we left off."

The digital revolution that the brand was built on is more significant now more than ever. Gupta is now all the more excited to see everything from the future relevancy point of view. Talking about the omnichannel approach the brand would be taking, she says, "It is very important to consider omnichannel presence without burning money the way we have in the past. I'm not thinking of a clear half and half divide, but maybe 60-70% of business would move online, and the rest would be offline." Thanks to e-commerce the gap between consumer and creator has become smaller. Last year, we saw Masaba making a foray in acting in the OTT space with a series on her namesake; she indicates on soon having another season of Masaba Masaba. Talking about the role investors have played in times of COVID when every business was running for revival, she says, "They told us to have a hard look at what we are doing. I believe your business should be robust enough to survive a time like this." Gupta believes much of 2021 will go exactly like last year in terms of sentiment and business will be back to normal only in 2022. While concluding the conversation Gupta shares, "Last year I think people don't want to be reminded of last year. I think people are waiting to dress up and go out."

(This article was first published in the February 2021 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, click here)