Lavie, Caprese, Louis Vuitton and a few others are supposedly styling statements for handbags in India. They set the standards of a woman who uses them. All these brands belong to other lands and naturally have the advantage of being imported. However, there is one Indian brand that has given all of them a head-on competition. It is Baggit. For a 100 crore business as of today, this company had a humble start. Founder of Baggit Nina Lekhi wouldn't have believed a future like this for her idea.
The story started in 1985 when everyone was biased towards imported fashion accessories. Nina Lekhi, 55 today, had failed her first-year exams of Foundation Course of Arts. She studied at Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai. The failure came as a wake-up call from what Nina had taken as a fun and free life. She had to do something. With her parent's encouragement, she took up to sales jobs. One of them was at Mike Kriplani Fashions. As time passed she learnt from her experiences. As a salesperson, she got to know what exactly the crowd was looking for. The big step was entering in entrepreneurship. Nina took a 7000 Rs loan from her mother and went out to buy leather and other material used for making handbags. Armed with her knowledge of the market her handbags became an instant hit. The word of mouth was her first source of clientele. She also hosted exhibitions and her bags were also available at Mike Kriplani Fashions. One thing led to another and the next thing Nina knew her bags were at sell in Regal and Shopper's Stop.
The year 1989 marked the first shop of Baggit at Kemp's Corner in Mumbai. Nina and her brother decided to take this next big step. Meanwhile, her retails in other shop continued.
The reason of Baggit's huge success is simple. It was always a customer-centred business. In an age when no Indian brand ever thought if competing for the imports, Nina Lekhi used cool logic and shrewd business skills and founded Baggit. Even after 35 years, her idea behind each bag is the same.
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