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<ul><li>Started out of a small bedroom 4 years ago, Indian Ethnic Co. owns three offices today and is growing by 200-300% YoY because of <keyword id="10959467" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="dance-marketing">dance marketing</keyword> and its ethnic products. </li><li>We speak to <keyword id="10959469" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="lekhinee-desai">Lekhinee Desai</keyword>, Co-founder, <keyword id="10959468" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="the-indian-ethnic-co">The Indian Ethnic Co</keyword>. to understand the importance of developing a voice and identity on social media, benefits of being involved in the marketing process as a founder and business goals for the brand.</li><li>Desai also tells us the inspiration behind their unique way of marketing.</li></ul>The co-founder of The Indian Ethnic Co. Lekhinee Desai has never really purchased an outfit in her life. Her mother, Hetal Desai, would visit popular exhibitions to find the best fabric in the market and stitch beautiful outfits for her. With no formal degree in fashion, Hetal continued stitching clothes and buying ethnic fabrics for her pure love for designing. Soon, the word spread and her neighbors and friends started approaching her. Four year ago, Lekhinee graduated from her business school and encouraged her mother to pursue her passion for designing. They put a team of artisians together and started The Indian Ethnic Co. in 2016 out of their bedroom. For two years, the brand just sold products through social media and in 2018, its website went live and the brand was official. According to technopak, the total Indian ethnic wear market is valued at Rs 70,000 crore and out of this, women's ethnic wear has an 85% (Rs 59,500 crore) share in the market and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10% till 2022. With the rising demand for ethnic wear and huge market potential for organised players, many international brands like Van Heusen, H&amp;M, Raymond and Peter England have also forayed into the ethnic market. So, to beat these giants, The Indian Ethnic Co. came up with a unique idea of marketing. Lekhinee decided to wear her own products and dance in them to portray how comfortable saris can be, to connect with consumers on a personal level. Lekhinee and her sister Twaraa Desai along with her childhood friends Apurva Dani and Charvi Budhdeo, are trained in classical Odissi dance forms. Lekhinee says she started dancing even before she started walking. She was also an assistant choreographer for the movie Ramleela. So, dance marketing came naturally to her and her dance marketing team. It was after Instagram introduced Reels in India that their videos started going viral. Their first reel itself garnered a million views. <div type="Video" msid="81619646" hostid="261" title="How dance marketing helped The Indian Ethnic Co. break the clutter and grow by 200-300%" dataSource="BUSINESSINSIDER" thumbUrl="https://denmark.timesinternet.in/cmslite/api/app/images.jpg?msid=81619646"></div> Telling us how the team came up with the idea of dance marketing, Lekhinee shared, “We were going to launch our Saris. We were known for our Kurtas and our fabrics before then. We wondered, how can we really break the clutter...My friends would come for the photoshoot because we always believed in showcasing real women (not models). So one fine day, my father suggested why don’t you start making dance reels with them? Dance is such a secondary nature to you and your friends, he said and mentioned how unique it would be to see women dancing effortlessly in saris. We thought it would also be so helpful to communicate the attributes of the product itself, because the saris that we sell are 100% handcrafted. They are made from such fine fabric in Mal, Kota Doria and cotton. So, we set up a tripod and shot ourselves dancing. The first reel was shot in five minutes and it got a million views. Our collection was sold out even before we could announce our launch.” The group’s first viral video on Instagram Reels was Kangana Re from the movie Paheli. The idea behind their dance marketing is to promote Indian ethnic culture, instil national pride and celebrate real beauty by featuring women of all sizes, age, shapes and colours. It also promotes sustainable fashion. <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div> According to Lekhinee, it is because of their company’s relatability factor and engaging content that they’ve been able to carve a niche for themselves. Telling us about the company's USP, she said, “I think what really separates us is the relatability factor that we've always tried to put in from day one. The idea is always to have real faces, and have real women of all body sizes and different age groups. My sister is 21. And even she wears a sari. And I am 29 and all the girls are within this range of age group. So, our videos also connect to the Gen Next of handcrafted clothing because they are not overexposed to wearing saris. We are also breaking so many stereotypes with the fact that we are young and showcasing the products in the way we are. This is not only helping us break the clutter but also helping us connect with the younger generation to adopt and wear sustainable fashion. Apart from that, the dance marketing format we’ve created, the overall industry is following that now.” Today, the Indian Ethnic Co. has three offices and one studio. It is about to hit a Rs 10 crore revenue mark because of dance marketing and its unique ethnic products. “When we officially started, I remember in 2018, we were doing 20 orders a week. And now we do close to 3000 orders a month, which is over 100 orders a day. That’s the kind of scale we’ve witnessed since we started. The turning point for us was the launch of the website. We started with an investment of Rs 50,000. And now we are close to touching a turnover of Rs 10 crores and we are seeing close to 200-300 times growth year-on-year since we started the website in 2018,” shared Lekhinee. When retail outlets shut down after COVID-19 hit India, The Indian Ethnic Co saw its second phase of growth and started flourishing on social media. Telling us about Indian Ethnic Co’s experience of sustaining through a global crisis, Lekhinee said, “Online sales boomed during the time of COVID and it has also pushed consumers to move to online shopping, even those who were not used to shopping online. We continued to advertise on Facebook and Instagram because our team is dependent on us. There are dyers, artisans, weavers -- they are all dependent on us. So, we took three orders during the lockdown and promised to deliver once it was uplifted. It ensured that all the artisans continued to get their income throughout the lockdown period. We also paid them an advanced salary so that their livelihood is not impacted. Once the lockdown opened, the artisans helped us in return. We were able to grow two and a half times in the matter of three months because retail outlets were shut. We didn’t have an office until the lockdown. In October 2020, we bought 3 offices and a studio.” To retain these customers, The Indian Ethnic Co. plans to expand its width and the depth of the products. It ultimately aims to become a lifestyle brand that offers everything a consumer needs. “The idea now is to create a library of sorts for all products handcrafted in India. So, currently, we have a range of fabrics, but now we want it to be a one-stop shop like an encyclopedia store of sorts, where all kinds of crafts and fabrics are available and anyone can come and shop from the Indian Ethnic Co. India has so many crafts to showcase and there are different kinds of artisans who are doing such great stuff. So, we really want the entire portfolio of everything handcrafted, that anyone can think of, to be on our website,” said Lekhinee. The Indian Ethnic Co. is also planning to launch a new range of products for men and kids.

How dance marketing helped The Indian Ethnic Co. grow by 200-300% post-lockdown

How dance marketing helped The Indian Ethnic Co. break the clutter and grow by 200-300%

The Indian Sari is one of the few garments that is internationally recognizable for its compelling regional style. As a metro-dwelling Indian girl, I believe that wearing a Sari is too far-fetched for most occasions. The whole six-yards of fabric is hard to maneuver for a working woman and the grace the sari commands requires complicated footwear like heels and the right tucks that can unravel easily. The everyday Indian sari has seen a revival of sorts with movements like 100SareePact, which encourage women to wear saris at least 100 days a year and document it on social media. Still, most working women find the garment tedious to carry off and wear on a daily basis especially when stitched pieces can be so comfortable in form of kurtas, dresses or simply the typical pair of jeans and a shirt. To satiate my curiosity and I decided to sign up for <a href="https://www.airbnb.co.in/experiences/39565">the Sari School</a> experience on a Sunday. Hosted by the popular <keyword id="519955" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="rita-kapoor">Rita Kapoor</keyword> who is known for her work reviving the ancient Indian craft of hand spinning and weaving since 1998, I reached Jangpura in South Delhi to be greeted by a beautiful building and sprawling gardens. Rita Kapoor Chrishti, who started the <keyword id="4193152" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="sari-school">Sari School</keyword> to help celebrate and educate others about the unstitched garment, started the afternoon with an interactive presentation. We learned about the craftspeople that create different kinds of hand-loom, all over the country. Handskilling capabilities on the traditional Charkha combined with Handloom weaving are the few unique resources that India holds in the international market. We also went back in time to when <keyword id="6355532" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="mahatma-gandhi">Mahatma Gandhi</keyword>'s support of the handloom industry popularized the indigenous methods of production during the Swaraj movement before industrialization took over. The highlight of the class was when we learnt how to drape the sari in four different regional styles, and understood the difference of quality between a range of handspun cotton and silks on display by touch &amp; feel. Rita has been involved in educating the world about saris through her work with artisans and she has also authored a book titled ‘Saris: Tradition and beyond.’ Sari, all Sari Traveling district-by-district, village-by-village, and city-by-city this extensive book explores the spectrum of traditional weaver and printer settlements in fourteen sari-producing states of India. Chrishti, who regularly takes up a group of four-five people for the <keyword id="719382" type="LOCATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="airbnb">Airbnb</keyword> experience every other Sunday in her studio, believes that a hands-on experience can really transform the way people perceive traditional saris. Rita also propagates that the nine yards don't have to be limited to a particular style and is familiar with 108 ways of draping the Sari. She demonstrated four regional styles of draping the Sari starting from <keyword id="28504" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="kerala">Kerala</keyword>’s Mohiniattam, Bengal’s Dhokna Jalpaiguri, Odissi Dance Style to Andra Pradesh’s Venukagundaram. My personal favorite was Mohiniattam style from Kerala that constructed a fabric flower on the hip and it didn't require a petticoat under. An afternoon in her studio and an introduction to her ethnic brand- <keyword id="5281841" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="taanbaan">Taanbaan</keyword>, made me revel in the past of the sari and the story it tells as it folds itself into the Indian traditions. 
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
	
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I went to the Sari School on Airbnb and learned how to tie a sari in four unique ways

Fashion weeks have passed their limitations from the lounges of elite houses. Surpassing the wardrobes, fashion weeks have got more meaningful than just exhibiting the latest oeuvre of trends. 
 
Lakme Fashion Week Summer/ Resort, which has created a niche for itself in revolutionizing the fashion space is no exception this season. The 2017 season just witnessed a ‘#NotWhatIWear’ movement launched by Ajio.com, a curated online fashion and style destination. 
 
Of late we have come across college diktats asking women students not to wear this and that. With ‘NotWhatIWear’ campaign, Ajio.com has added its voice to thousands of conversations of this nature taking place across the nation. The campaign aims to sensitize and encourage ‘inclusivity’ towards one another as well as choices, including the sartorial ones. 
 
Show must go on 
The show opened with a powerful thematic audio-visual presentation that set the context, featuring women sporting cardboard boxes, which had on them statements such as ‘I’m wearing skinny jeans. Should I be banned from college?’ 
 
What followed was a spectacular sequence that had four models strutting down the ramp in card board boxes highlighted with thought provoking messages. The show picked up tempo when four female and two male models showcased stylish monochrome creations, leading to the four female models dramatically ripping off the boxes to reveal an attractive collection of black minis, off- shoulder numbers and funky cropped tops. 
 
Then came the Work Wear sequence headlined as ‘They told me not to wear this to work’ made interesting by Ajio.com coming out with a fashionable dateline ranging from Fun Filled Mondays to Monochrome Tuesdays, Ethnic Wednesdays, Sporty Thursdays, and Feminine Fridays. 
 
Later, the show had a fun and sporty collection for campus clothing spunkily themed ‘They told me not to wear this to college’, which featured edgy denim shorts, colourful Tees, slinky maxis, and skinny jeans. 
 
Marriage of ethnic and western 
 
It was party time when a mix of western and ethnic wear took to the ramp with creatively draped saris teamed with tube tops, will-power dresses, and chic western styles with fusion elements. 
The finale had models clad in identical fabrics with thematic graffiti that urged women to express their style freely and fearlessly. The models moved in formation and dramatically turned when the lights went out to reveal a glow in the dark neon sign “#NotWhatIWear” on their clothes. 
 
Show stopper 
But the high point of the show was yet to come when the ramp was dazzled by celebrities, RJ Malishka, Mallika Dua and Varun Thakur as they whole-heartedly endorsed the relevant #NotWhatIWear movement initiated by Ajio.com.

Women's dress code at college: Let the Lakme Fashion Week Summer/ Resort guide you

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">AFPThe Syrian city of Aleppo has been divided since mid-2012, and the eastern rebel-held neighbourhoods have been under regime siege near-continuously since July 17.</div></div></div>A cease-fire agreement aimed at stopping the battle for Syria's largest city long enough to evacuate civilians and rebel fighters has already collapsed, less than one full day after it was brokered in Ankara by Russian and Turkish officials.It is unclear who broke the truce first, but it <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-assad-iran-syria-aleppo-2016-12">reportedly broke down</a> after pro-Syrian government, Iran-backed Shiite militias operating a checkpoint inside Aleppo would not let civilians evacuate according to the terms of the deal. Iran then introduced new conditions on the cease-fire deal as its proxies resumed their attacks on the rebel-held east.While the collapse of the agreement may be a nuisance for Syria and Russia, which apparently agreed to the deal without consulting Iran, it does not represent a significant setback."The pro-regime coalition retains the dominant edge in Aleppo city," said Chris Kozak, an expert on Syria at the Institute for the Study of War. "The fall of opposition forces is largely inevitable, whether evacuated or destroyed by military force, and Syria, Russia, and Iran can collectively afford to hold out for even greater concessions for the time being."But, as Assad himself said in a recent interview, the fall of Aleppo "won't mean the end of the war."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">REUTERS/Omar SanadikiForces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad stand inside the Umayyad mosque, in the government-controlled area of Aleppo, during a media tour, Syria December 13, 2016.</div></div></div>A major concern in the West is that the violence will become increasingly sectarian as Iraqi Shia militiamen assembled by Iran "go through ruined east Aleppo with a fine-toothed comb, murdering, looting, and pillaging from one neighborhood to the next," said Fred Hof, the director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East who served as special adviser for transition in Syria to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012."Washington is pleading with Moscow to prevent the worst from happening, but it does so with no leverage and no 'or else,'" Hof told Business Insider on Wednesday. The evacuation of rebels and civilians from eastern Aleppo could therefore alleviate short-term suffering. But experts perceive the forced displacement - and, in many cases, the mandatory conscription - as a form of ethnic cleansing. "Displacing or detaining populations has become business as usual in areas retaken by the regime," Faysal Itani, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Omar Sanadiki/ReutersBuses wait to evacuate people from a rebel pocket in Aleppo, in the government-controlled al-Hamadaniah Stadium of Aleppo, Syria December 14, 2016.</div></div></div> The "cleansing," Itani said, reflect a pattern used by the Assad regime to clear areas once controlled by the opposition. "It is sometimes called the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/world/middleeast/once-propelled-by-hope-for-a-modern-syria-green-buses-now-run-on-tears.html">'green bus' strategy</a> after the vehicles used to transport the displaced," he wrote.It is unlikely that the roughly 7,000 fighters inside Aleppo will give up on the revolution once they are evacuated from the city. Approximately 40,000 fighters affiliated with the Free Syrian Army are still fighting the regime outside of Aleppo, along with about 30,000 in southern Syria, and several thousand in the suburbs of Damascus and Idlib.Abdul Hadi Sari, a former air force general and commander in the Southern Front forces, <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2016/1214/Fall-of-Aleppo-could-tip-Syria-from-civil-war-to-insurgency">told the Christian Science Monitor</a> that his forces are preparing for an "underground, insurgency phase - a popular resistance - against the regime, its allies, and their interests."In other words, while recapturing Aleppo would leave Assad with firm control over Syria's major urban centers - including Damascus and Homs - opposition forces still control large parts of northwestern and southern Syria.From there, they could either become an insurgency, as Sari suggested; join the anti-ISIS fight led by the US, Turkey, and Jordan. Or, they could radicalize."There are some individuals that are drawn to Al Qaeda because they are disappointed with the West and American policy in Syria," Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert and visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the CS Monitor. "If they want to continue the fight, they will join Al Qaeda."If they do, the fighting will likely get extremely bloody: Because foreign actors such as the US, Turkey, and the Gulf states have little leverage in those areas, the regime can operate there "with impunity," said Syrian journalist and analyst Hassan Hassan."The areas in Syria in which the regime can operate at this point without having to face foreign countries are mostly Idlib and rural Damascus," Hassan told Business Insider on Wednesday. "This sounds to me like the beginning of a new dynamic in the Syrian conflict, which happens to be just as a new administration comes to Washington."Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander of the US-led anti-ISIS operation in Syria, said in a press conference Wednesday that he expects that most of the actors in Aleppo "probably have other ideas about what they're going to do next," and that the fall of Aleppo will likely be "a complicator" for the US-led anti-ISIS coalition. But he said he doesn't think it will have a huge effect on the coalition's anti-ISIS efforts in the rest of the country.Hof, however, predicted that aerial attacks by Russia and the regime on civilian neighborhoods in Idlib will continue, and that pro-government forces could launch a ground offensive in the direction of Raqqa, the Islamic State's de facto capital in Syria."Attacking Raqqa would enable the Russians to say they are actually fighting ISIS," Hof said. "They would also be able to sweep away the anti-ISIS coalition's efforts and restore Assad rule in Raqqa: misrule that made Syria safe for ISIS in the first place." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dea-agent-explains-his-job-to-family-mike-vigil-deal-2016-11">EX-UNDERCOVER DEA AGENT: What I told my friends and family about my job</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="piNndsMjE6ztKMaQei1eCDbFGV31hEva" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

You Searched For "ethnic saris" and got 5 results

How dance marketing helped The Indian Ethnic Co. grow by 200-300% post-lockdown

Karuna Sharma

How dance marketing helped The Indian Ethnic Co. break the clutter and grow by 200-300%

Business Insider India

I went to the Sari School on Airbnb and learned how to tie a sari in four unique ways

Tanya Dubey

Women's dress code at college: Let the Lakme Fashion Week Summer/ Resort guide you

Suchayan Mandal

Assad's victory in Syria's largest city will likely lead to more war

Natasha Bertrand

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