Working to blend rich footwear of Jutis and Aari work withstylish western trends, a 29-year-old fashion designer, Nusaiba Bhat, takes herinspiration from traditional Kashmiri designs.
With a degree in finance and many years of experience ofworking in the financial sector within country and outside, Nusaiba saidgoodbye to a lucrative career and started working for her passion – creating afashion studio in Srinagar based on traditional crafts of Kashmir.
Nusaiba says she always dreamed of pursuing her passion bystirring up the love for Kashmiri tradition through her creations in anentrepreneurial way. The outcome of her endeavour is come out in the shape ofher newly launched fashion label Cilwana. While focusing on quality andtraditional craftsmanship, Cilwana follows the new trend in the market.
“Cilwana is a personalised store where you get uniqueproducts. For my every product, I try to experiment with new ideas and it hasproved to be fruitful till now,” says Nasaiba.
Since her childhood Nusaiba’s knack for understanding thepurest form of fabric came through the habit of feeling and understanding theintricacies which helped her in identifying quality stuff and understanding thevarieties of fabric.
Driven towards the glamorous world of fashion designing froman early age, Nusaiba is working with the determination for ‘preserving theculture and heritage to prevent its extinction by blending it with moderndesigns’.
Nusaiba believes that it is not just the passion that helpsa person to fulfil their dreams, rather education and exposure plays animportant role.
After completing her schooling from Presentation ConventSchool, Srinagar, Nusaiba joined Kashmir University and did post graduation inFinance and Control.
Later on, she moved to Mumbai and worked in the prestigiouscommodity exchange of the county as an analyst.
“While at MCX, I got a chance to work with many businessentities at the top level which helped me to understand the intricacies of thereal business world,” she says.
She also worked as a credit officer in Delhi for some timeproviding services like investment, lending and money management.
“Later on I went to Dubai and worked for some time HabibBank Zurich (HBZ). My work experience gave me a big boost and great exposure ofhow the business world actually works,” she says.
With all this experience and exposure, Nusaiba decided toreturn back to her roots to start her venture in Srinagar.
“Initially, I started with a WhatsApp group, followed by anInstagram page, and received overwhelming response for my work,” she says.
Presently she is receiving 20 plus orders every day and withthe addition of the recently opened retail fashion studio at Rajbagh the dailyorders increasing day by day.
“At Cilwana my USP is hand picking each and every productthat goes in making the footwear as well as my clothing line making sure thequality is top notch,” she says.
Nusaiba has travelled across India to meet Artisans, findthe best quality fabric, leather and other material for making a perfect designand comfortable footwear.
Nusaiba set up her online store in June 2018 June and openedher fashion studio at Radio Colony, Rajbagh recently. She makes full use ofsocial media to promote her business and connect with the people. From placingorders to updating customers and delivering orders, her page on Instagram hasplayed a vital role in promoting her business.
“Not just for my personal interests and growth, I expandedhorizontally but also I realized the need of the hour is that the people in oursociety should have a good know-how of the finest quality fabric, as nowadaysit has become very difficult even for people who are in this trade todifferentiate between different types of fabric and judge quality of thestuff,” says Nusaiba.
Cilwana is a label that follows a new trend in the marketwhile focusing on quality and traditional craftsmanship.
“Cilwana is a personalized store where you get uniqueproducts. For my every product, I try to experiment with new ideas and it hasproved to be fruitful till now,” she says.
Being a financially independent woman, Nusaiba believesevery woman should strive for a better and financially independent living.
Nusaiba always dreamed of pursuing her passion by stirringup the love for Kashmiri tradition through her creations in an entrepreneurialway. She says that her family has always supported her unconditionally andbelieved in her vision.