BENGALURU: They danced, they climbed and hopped around.. And all of this in a saree, without the slightest sign of discomfort. Sujata and Taniya Biswas, Mumbai-based entrepreneurs who founded Suta, known for their mulmul sarees, say the ‘saree is the new t-shirt’.
In the city, launching their latest stores after Mumbai and Kolkata, the Biswas sisters say one of the reasons for having Bengaluru as their latest spot was because, according to their database, they have ‘a huge clientele here’.
However, it was their personal fondness for the city that got them here as well. “The first time we came here was more than a decade ago for a family holiday, and at that time we were in our respective corporate jobs. We don’t even remember which places we visited, but we fell in love with the city so much that we wanted to be associated with the city. Now we are back with Suta,” says Taniya, who along with her sister left well-paying corporate jobs to start Suta in 2016.
Started as a project that was born solely out of their love for textiles and the saree, the sisters never thought about the reach. “It was during Covid that we saw a huge boom in the demand since people started ordering online.
We had to push ourselves because if we didn’t sell the sarees, the weavers wouldn’t have an income,” says Sujata, adding that they had initially started with just two weavers but now they work with 200 of them. Taniya adds, “One of the other reasons was we met many girls who would take pride in saying ‘we don’t know how to tie a saree’, like wearing a saree is something not cool. We wanted to
change that.”
Sometimes the beginning is not a problem but consistency is, and Taniya agrees. “It is a never-ending process, to ideate and keep yourself relevant with time. Sometimes we take inspiration from conversations we have with people,” says Taniya, while showing their LGBTQ+ collection.
Sujata points out that it was a conscious decision for them to keep the pricing affordable. “We ourselves would like to pick sarees which are not priced exorbitantly. And it should be such that it should not dent a college-going girl’s pocket.”
Started as a humble initiative by bootstrapping, their sarees have arrived in Bollywood as well. The latest one is seen being worn by Shefali Shah in Doctor G. However, the founders still fondly remember their first break in Dharma Production’s Lust Stories, the one that Kiara Advani was wearing during the ‘famous orgasm scene’.
“Karan Johar’s team had visited my workshop, and that time we were operating out of a garage. They selected whatever they wanted and later we saw Kiara Advani wearing it in ‘the scene of the anthology’. It was a pleasant surprise,” recalls Taniya, adding that it surely got them more visibility since they did not spend anything on the promotions of the brand apart from pushing the social media posts.