Shruti Savla and Shruti Kumar Talk About Their Accessory Brand ‘The Ribbon Factory’
How and when did the brand come out?
We were always interested in designing jewellery but decided to take it a step further by designing jewellery for the hair, considering the fact that we were highly inspired by Blair Waldorf from the hit TV series Gossip Girl. Thus TRF came to being in late 2009.
Did you both go to design school?
We graduated with a degree in Applied Art specialising in advertising and graphic design this May.
Do you design all the accessories by yourself?
We design and execute all the accessories ourselves. We have been thinking of outsourcing the work but we love it too much to be letting anyone else do it.
Did you face any difficulties in the start-up phase?
The main difficulty was letting people know that a brand like ours exists and never having done something on a large scale before we were both quite lost initially but social media websites like Facebook and twitter were of great help in building contacts.
What was the first product of The Ribbon Factory?
It was a satin elastic headband with a bow in a variety of colours.
Which accessories are the most fun to work on?
We started off with hair accessories but now we’re into designing wedding corsages and other ribbon jewellery too and our favourites include crafting embellished flowers and bows.
What’s the business model like?
We cater to the student crowd and know what it’s like to want pretty things without burning a hole through your pocket. So every time we price a product we think if we ourselves would want to spend so much money on it and that pretty much gives us a reality check.
What’s the next step?
We plan to set up a website where people can purchase our products online. We also plan to exhibit a lot more in cities across India.
Volume 2 Issue 2
