With clients like Kareena Kapoor and Vidya Balan, Lovetobag is all set to reach Rs 5 Cr in revenue

Ayushi Kanoi Gupta, founder of premium bags brand Lovetobag, has been fascinated by design and craftsmanship since her childhood. With her mother working in the Indian garment industry, Ayushi was often found wrapping herself in the finest of chiffons, surrounded by bright leathers and fabrics. 

It was therefore not surprising when Ayushi enrolled herself in the National Institute of Fashion Design (NIFT), New Delhi and graduated with a gold medal. After her graduation, Ayushi worked in the Indian exports accessories sector for over two years, where she realised the unexplored potential for a value-added accessories brand. “A brand with Indian flavour and international quality,” she says. 

India supplies couture embroidery to luxury brands like Alexander McQueen, Balmain, Dior, and Mary Katranzou. “If India is the production hub for world class accessories brands, how could this skill be applied to create an indigenous brand?” Ayushi wondered. 

In 2011, she founded Lovetobag, on the premise of celebrating India’s roots while maintaining top drawer quality. By 2015, the Delhi-based brand was a regular at Lakme Fashion Week and Lotus Makeup India Fashion Week, and making it to the covers of the likes of Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia, Vogue, and Cosmopolitan. 

Lovetobag is also a hit in Bollywood with B-town celebrities Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Shipa Shetty, Kareena Kapoor, Vidya Balan, Karishma Kapoor and Malaika Arora often found sporting Lovetobag. 

“Lovetobag is my tribute to the quintessential Indian craftsmanship blended with modern design sensibilities,” Ayushi tells HerStory. 

The turning point

Like many startups, Lovetobag was born out of an unmet demand. 

During her last tenure at Impulse International Pvt Ltd, Ayushi designed and produced bags, scarves and jewellery for high-street fashion brands including Ted Baker, Karen Millen and Debenhams Designs. “I often found that their bestsellers were inspired by Indian crafts,” she says. 

The thought process reached a different level when Ayushi received a leather pouch from her friend in London with a ‘Made in India’ label. But why bags? 

During her sister’s wedding, the entrepreneur was unable to find a pouch to complement the wedding outfit and complete the look. “Indian brands continued to make generic products… there was an unexplored potential for a value-added Indian accessories brand,” she says. 

With some leftover embroidery from her mother’s store - Sozenkari, Ayushi created a pouch and later went on to sell 500 pieces of the same design. “That’s when I discovered my signature style,” she says. 

Lovetobag has a team of 40 employees, including indigenous karigars and craftsmen. 

However, being a woman in business is no cakewalk, says Ayushi.

“The stereotype attached with women-led fashion businesses was challenging. Initially, it was difficult to convince potential suppliers or wholesalers that Lovetobag is more than a passion project and is a serious profit-making business,” she says. 

All that glitter is gold 

Ayushi focuses on creating timeless, luxurious, antique and heritage designs. 

Once she finds her inspiration, she does her research and creates a mood board, which is then followed by sourcing the raw materials. After working on the ideation and sampling, the bags are finally sent for production. 

“Creating the first sample is an emotional process. Each design easily goes over at least 10 iterations before it is finalised,” she says. Ayushi believes that ‘product is the queen’ and finds the whole process gratifying. 

The turnaround time for each hand-crafted product entailing an average of 150 man-hours, is three weeks. 

Ayushi is constantly scouting for premium fabrics, semi-precious materials and trims. Besides the usual season-based collections - Spring Summer and Autumn Winter, Lovetobag also makes customised bags. The custom created bags are adorned with speciality premium embroidery materials. 

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Explaining its uniqueness, Ayushi says that the materials used in her bags have rounded edges to make them last longer. “The embroidery needs to be anchored and secured,” she says. The brand uses speciality precision cut Japanese beads in its intricate embroideries to ensure the longevity of each product. Semi-precious stones and real baroque pearls are also used in the making the products. 

Additionally, the embroidered panels are treated and rested before being converted into products. Lovetobag operates on a mass-customisation model zeroing in on the wastes created by overstocking of products. 

Affordable luxury 

Lovetobag also launches capsule collections every two to three months, with one to five designs. “This helps us keep our customers engaged while reducing the overall stock levels,” Ayushi explains. 

The brand’s recent capsule collection includes Zuri Zora, Nesrin & Amoli -inspired by heritage Kashmiri Kanikar shawls, antique silk carpets, Basra pearls, shearing fur, leopard skin florets and luxe architectural metallic surfaces. 

Besides selling its products directly from its website and its flagship store in Shahpurjat in New Delhi, LovetoBag has entered into B2B partnerships with multi-designer stores like Perniaspopupshop, Aza, Ensemble, and Ogaan in India, and with over 35 boutiques abroad. 

The brand has also diversified its offerings to large-scale corporate and wedding gifting. It also accepts contractual export orders. 

The brand’s core value is to offer luxury handcrafted products at affordable prices. Lovetobag’s return favours and corporate gifts start from Rs 1,000. Monograms collection ranges between Rs 3,500 and Rs 7,500. The pret collection ranges between Rs 2,900 and Rs 4,900, while the couture products are available between Rs 5,900 and Rs 10,500. 

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Clocking numbers 

In order to reach a larger audience, Lovetobag participated in 26 exhibitions within the country, in the first year of its launch, which generated between Rs 5,000 and Rs 50,000 from each event, but was not able to meet the total costs. “Slowly I recognised the target addressable markets and doubled down there,” Ayushi says. Post which, it started retailing through major Indian luxury multi-designer stores and websites to get its first set of customers. The brand was also quick to recognise the offline to online trend. It set up its website in 2016. 

Lovetobag’s website clocks about 30,000 views per month and has 75,000 followers across its social media platforms. Recently, the brand has also been experimenting with social commerce and using WhatsApp as a tool to market its products. 

The coronavirus pandemic made production a challenge as most markets were closed and supplies had diminished. However, it has had focussing on digital media to continue the business. Ayushi says that once the nationwide lockdown was lifted, Lovetobag’s social marketing selling strategy produced more than Rs 20 lakh in sales. 

Bootstrapped since inception with Rs 5 lakh, Lovetobag has been profitable since the first year. “Over the last three years, our revenues have been consistent and grown over 50 percent each year,” Ayushi says. The brand is targeting a revenue of Rs 5 crore in the next three years. 

The luxury bags market and road ahead 

According to Statista, revenue in the bags and accessories segment in India is projected to reach $3,337 million by the end of this year. The revenue is expected to show a CAGR of 13.6 percent between 2020 and 2024, taking the market volume to $5,566 million by 2024. 

Lovetobag competes with other Indian brands like Beau Monde, Duet Luxury and The Right Sided, among others. However, Ayushi believes her brand has a differentiator to offer. “Our timeless pieces are easy to pair with Indian and western outfits, alike,” she says.

“We believe each piece must be treasured, worn, re-worn and also passed on to the next generation. We are fervent believers of the sentimental value attached to each Lovetobag accessory, and consider the piece almost like an investment and not a purchase,” Ayushi adds. 

Ayushi feels this is the right time for the venture to scale and reach consumers in the different parts of the world. She is now open to the idea of having the right strategic partner who can not only provide financial capital but expertise as well. “The funds will be used to become more digitally native in the frontend as well as the backend and grow the customer base,” she adds.