How a corporate leader made a simple to-wear saree and constructed a Rs 1.5 crore business in only three years

Neha Tendon Sharma's "Wrap in 1 Minute Saree" is expected to be one  of the  smartest innovations in the Indian fashion industry in recent times. Aimed at modern women, who need to wear something that is both beautiful and easy to wear,   Neha launched the  innovative  product  in  2019 under  the  brand "Isidora Life" with a small investment of Rs 3 lakh. The brand has achieved a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore in less than three years.

When Neha, a senior corporate executive, used to travel the world on business trips dressed in western clothes, a few years ago she had to move to a tier 2 city in India, the one thing she feared the most was dressing in a sari. Neha had quit her job at Jeté, a Dubai airline that provided flight support services at airports around the world, and joined her husband, Dr Jayesh Sharma, in Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh. Jayesh, a cancer surgeon, was looking to buy a property to build a clinic in the city and Neha decided to help him. She had extensive experience in her previous job, negotiating and closing deals for her company. But unlike the corporate world, she found it inappropriate to wear western clothes in Raipur and preferred to go out in saris.

However, wearing a sari turned out to be a big ordeal for her, a far cry from slipping into a trouser and a top.“It not only takes those extra minutes to wrapping a sari, but makes you anxious about ruining the pleats,” says NEA, a no nonsense woman, who believes beauty and efficiency have to go hand in hand. As she observes, “To my mind, beauty and efficiency are not mutually exclusive. They are byproducts of each other. Beauty is not an option, so is efficiency and utility. Neha and Jayesh were both based in Dubai since 2012. In 2015 Jayesh returned to India and settled in Raipur. Neha continued to shuttle between Dubai and Raipur, but eventually in 2017 she bade goodbye to her corporate career and shifted base to Raipur as well.

It was the time her husband was trying to set up a hospital, and she began to assist him in finding a plot of land to construct the clinic and also met with doctors who could be roped into the project. She adapted to the local custom and began to wear saris for the meetings. But he had trouble wearing them. Not only did it take longer to put them on, but keeping the pleats in place was also a challenge, not to mention the difficulty of mobility when wearing a sari, compared to pants. Because it's beautiful, that's not a good enough reason to wear it. It should allow me to face everyday life. For my inexperienced mind, fashion should make me run if I walked first,” Neha says.

Reflecting on her predicament, she realized that many women would face a similar situation. She explored to see easy to wear sari in the market, but couldn't find any. It was then that he decided to take action and make him own some saris that he could wrap quickly and design in a way that was also comfortable to wear. Neha picked out a few saris from her wardrobe and took them to a shop and asked them to modify the saris to suit her needs.

The result was a beautiful product but functional, which quickly led to the birth of Isidora Life and its "Wrap in 1 Minute Saree" brand." I created a brand that was both functional and stylish and didn't cut a hole in your pocket," says Neha, who purchased around 150 saris of different varieties and created new, easy-to-wear designs. “I took pictures of the saris and put them on my Facebook page.

The response was good, and the saris were out of stock,” says Neha, recounting the early days of her entrepreneurial journey. Neha hired people, rented a separate office and launched the Isidora Life website on July 13, 2019. "I started with a team of around 7 women and around 150 saris. We initially sold saris of around Rs 800 to Rs. We are now selling saris costing up to Rs 15,000,” says Neha.

The first month of sales was Rs 50,000, which jumped to Rs 90,000 the following month and rose to Rs 1.20 000 in the third month. Covering all heights, sizes and fabrics, each saree has the attached skirt with the pleats sewn in. "The sarees are available for a waistline of, 24-52 inches. So no matter if you gain or lose weight, you can still wear the same saree,” says Neha. Sarees are available in all types of fabrics such as silk, crêpe, chiffon and satin.

It's easy to put on, like putting on a skirt,, and it doesn't even take a minute. The products are only sold on their website. They are not available on other e-commerce sites like Amazon or Flipkart. Comes from cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. 

"We offer services such as easy returns, free delivery, COD and custom sizes and heights," says the 40-year-old entrepreneur, born and raised in Ahmedabad. Neha comes from a middle class family. His father Kumar Tendon was an assistant mechanical engineer in the railways and his mother Hash Tendon was a schoolteacher. “My parents worked hard,” recalls Neha. "I saw my dad working from sunrise to sunset.

After that, he would go out to teach students so that our school fees could be paid. My mother was sewing sweaters for a school on a contract basis. In 2002, she graduated in Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, Surathkal. In 2003, Neha married her boyfriend Jayesh, whom she met in Mumbai through a mutual friend at the age of 19. Was hired by Singhi Advisors as an investment banker. He then worked at Avendus before joining Jetex in Dubai. Today, being her boss, Neha employs about 40 women.

It is mostly tailors who design the sarees he buys from the markets of Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Tamil Nadu. "When I was working as a banker, I touched elite life and the company took care of my needs. As an entrepreneur, you do everything yourself," Neha notes, reflecting on her transition from business manager to business manager.

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