There are multiple ways to celebrate being in the business for 20 years, especially in an industry like fashion, where it is essential to keep up with moving trends while staying true to one’s essence. However, Priyanka and Ankur Modi, the founders of AMPM, decided to take a different approach.
“It was about three years ago when we started contemplating what lies ahead for the brand. Where did we see ourselves in the next 10 years and, more importantly, where did we want to see ourselves?” recalls Priyanka.
This exercise saw them concluding that it was time to change the narrative, to go back to the drawing board and reinvent themselves.
“We had to look at our strengths and weaknesses dispassionately so that when we move forward, we take only what is essential. AMPM was started two decades ago to provide its audience with something relaxed and stylish. A luxury they could experience every day. We realised we wanted to return to that premise. To operate from our absolute core, this time unfiltered,” she adds.
While the aesthetic continues to be a celebration of understated, everyday luxury, the changes lie in the details—name of the brand, logo, and retail experience. Priyanka talks to us about the new avatar of the label, their jewellery line, and more.
Tell us more about the changes at AMPM.
We needed a disruption. To establish a new identity, a new voice, and a new brand universe in the ambitious pace we had set ourselves, we needed to make some radical changes. To begin with, we changed our name from AMPM by Ankur & Priyanka Modi to simply AMPM.
Considering that we had decidedly moved forward from where we were, we felt our brand logo should represent this transformation too. The most noticeable thing about the new logo is the letter ‘P’ which has been reversed. One, it symbolises our spirit that is quietly revolutionary.
Two, it stands for my name and I represent the creative side of the brand so the emphasis on it in the new logo is focusing on our collective creative strength. Another decision was to only have our audience experience the new AMPM aesthetic going forward.
That meant two things—closing retail touchpoints that do not align with our brand story and updating all remaining touch points be its physical stores, online stores or social media platforms. We previously had 12 stores across seven cities in India. We closed nine out of our 12 stores and only kept three, all in New Delhi. These decisions showed how serious we were in our intent to evolve.
Tell us about how the brand has evolved since you first started.
One of the things we learnt about ourselves early on was that we like to do things differently. Like, when fashion only meant couture in our landscape, we decided to create a ready-to-wear label. When the Indian fashion industry was still nascent, we aimed to scale.
For the last few years, with our product, we have been working on bringing it back to its original promise of ‘relaxed and stylish, everyday luxury’ that we started with and we are ensuring every product is thoroughly filtered through that lens. It is about less clutter and more curation.
What was the thought process behind your much-talked-about boutique at DLF Emporio in Delhi?
It was imperative that we capture the essence of the new language we had created. One of the first things we decided was to do away with the idea of it being a retail store. It could not feel transactional. So we took our inspiration from a real home, my home.
We created a space that has an innate sense of discovery. We worked with a single material and enveloped the entire shell of the store in that, giving it a sense of calm. We enveloped some of the furniture too in the same material, helping the space expand and making it more tranquil.
Wood was a natural choice thereafter, adding character and warmth to an otherwise stark canvas. Water too was introduced in strategic locations to soothe and soften. Our real challenge came in the way of our biggest desire, sunlight. But the location of our store is constructed in a manner that simply does not allow for external light to flow inside.
Not willing to give up this desire, we did the next best thing. We replicated it. With that came alive our courtyard now mimics an actual courtyard with sunlight. All human senses had to evoke the same feelings, whether it was the music or the fragrance in the store.
Enhancing the feeling of curation is also the way we visually merchandised the store. Even though we had doubled our space from its original size, we reduced the merchandise on display by half, giving the customer a chance to slow down, view each product and truly appreciate them.
What prompted you to launch a jewellery label?
Our jewellery line is a part of our vision of becoming a global luxury lifestyle brand. As a natural extension of our apparel and accessories, we would like to continue and create universal products that transcend fashion and cultural barriers, while appealing to discerning consumers around the world.
Jewellery starts at Rs 1,450