Corporate people have few workwear options

Threads & Shirts is a freshly-tailored concept providing men/women a choice to opt for custom-tailored shirts rather than a usual pick out of the standard shirt block. Anisha Chaudhari, founder of Threads & Shirts explains about the concept of customised shirt to Fibre2Fashion.

Fibre2Fashion: How did the idea of making customised shirts arise in your mind?

Anisha Chaudhari:

Threads & Shirts was conceived out of a pure passion for dressing well in the corporate world. Learning really quickly that the corporate audience (men or women) have very little options in getting a chance to choose and style their daily workwear outfits, I realised the perfect opportunity to provide a product which fills this vacuum and thus Threads & Shirts was born.

F2F: How does the process of ordering customised shirts work?

AC:

Custom-made or tailored shirts have a personalised aspect to them, being totally different from the regular ready-to-wear shirts. These shirts require our in-house stylist to completely understand the client's preference, styles, fits, fabrics, etc. Only after we have the fully required information, we start working on the shirts. We believe each shirt has its own unique personality just like our unique clients. The art of a perfectly handcrafted shirt lies in completely understanding what our client needs. For this, we have developed an in-depth process of customer styling form by providing an option between different collars, cuffs, pleats, fits, buttons, monograms, bottom cuts, plackets, etc. Our team of professionally trained stylists and tailors can also be booked for an office or home appointment as per the client's availability.

F2F: Where do you source your fabrics and accessories from?

AC:

Our fabrics are sourced from the top 6-7 mills of the world. We take pride in our specially-curated fabrics, as per the two main fashion seasons: Summer/Spring and Autumn/Winter. Our team of stylists and trend analysers tend to give us set fabric patterns, weaves and colour palates according to these two-season collections. Our handpicked fabrics range from pure Giza Egyptian cotton from Raymond's, Irish linen from the Club Burgoyne range, pure Italian cotton from Tessitura Monti, and the Turkish designed range of corporate Sokta's material. Our fabrics start at luxurious thread count of one or two ply by 100/120/160 upto 200 thread count. We pride ourselves in having the most unique designs and crafting, as all our accessories are handmade in our very own units in Mumbai keeping the shirts and accessories very exclusive.

F2F: Why have you opted for only menswear, and to be precise, shirts? Do you plan to manufacture womenswear in the near future?

AC:

Threads & Shirts was started as a luxury handcrafted shirt brand, and we targeted the menswear aspect as we saw an immediate demand for corporate and workwear from that audience. Keeping in mind the changing trends of corporate dressing for women, we will be launching a special collection only for women this upcoming season.

F2F: Can you brief us about your varieties of buttons and collar stays?

AC:

We spoil our customers for choice. Being a freshly-tailored company, we cater to all the styling requirements and preferences of our clients. We have a selection of corporate collars from the traditional corporate cutaway, extreme cutaway to the more unconventional ones like modern men and modern club. With a variety of collars for different occasion, we also provide a range of cuff styles from the crisp manhattan square cuff, jersey round cuff to the classic french cuff.  Our perfection lies in styling a shirt correctly for our clients and bringing their personality right into the shirt. We also have a selection of designed buttons from the classy horn buttons to the original mother of pearls.

F2F: What will be your retail and marketing as well as communication strategies?

AC:

Our retailing strategy is further expansion through our stores; we already have a strong south Bombay presence through our flagship store in Opera House. We plan to reach a wider and bigger audience by launching a new store soon. Our marketing strategy would be to look at more future cross branding activities and corporate events.

F2F: What is the size of your manufacturing capacity? What hurdles do you face in handling the workforce?

AC:

F2F: What insignia do you use to differentiate your products from the rest?

AC:

Threads & Shirts introduces you to a completely different experience of handcrafted tailored shirt and in order to show our uniqueness in what we do, our logo consists of a blue button and a red thread. We brand each and every shirt; we handcraft it with an iconic blue button at its end and running it with a red thread. This symbolises that the shirt is handcrafted uniquely for the client. Our attention to details also lies in the fact that we have labels designed with our brand motto which is 'Freshly Tailored', as we believe our clients aren't a slim or relax fit, but they have their own unique fit, and that is why we make the freshly-tailored shirts for them specially.

F2F: Tell us something about your new Spring/Summer collection.

AC:

Our new Summer/Spring collection shows a perfect balance between casual and corporate shirts. Threads & Shirts tries to satisfy every shirt of the customer's need and bring them a perfectly tailored shirt for any occasion. We will also be introducing a new line of women's workwear clothing.

F2F: Your new website is on the way. How do you look to differentiate it from the online clutter?

AC:

Apart from the uniquely personalised aspect of tailoring and styling that we provide, Threads & Shirts has launched its one of a kind 3D-render engine model. This shirt model gives you a real-time experience of draping any fabric, collar, cuff, monogram, buttons, threads, cuffs, etc. This new technology enables the user to get a real-time touch and feel of the customisation process. It is extremely user-friendly and also gives the customer a chance to play with the online shirt model at the tip of their fingers.(PA)