Elliot Moss
Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM however the music has been cut due to rights issues.
That was Nina Simone with Ain’t Got No – I Got Life, talk about being uplifting. Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping Jazz, Soul and Blues. My guest today I am very pleased to say is Saloni Lodha, Fashion Designer and Founder of the women’s wear label, Saloni. Born in India, Saloni was brought up as she says, in a very conservative and religious Rajasthani family. But rather than settle into an arranged marriage, a love of textiles led Saloni to Mumbai, aged 16 to study Applied Art and Graphic Design. Although never intending to become a fashion designer, it was while living in Hong Kong that Saloni saw a gap in the luxury brand dominated market for fun and affordable clothing incorporating traditional Indian textiles. After designing items for herself and selling one-off pieces through pop-up boutiques, Saloni gained fashion experience in London and launched Saloni – meaning ‘beautiful’ in Sanskrit in case you didn’t know – in 2011 with £10,000 of personal savings. The Saloni label is now sold at leading stockists across four continents with studios in Mumbai and London and Saloni last year launched Connecting for India, an initiative supporting Indian crafts communities. Saloni Lodha is my Business Shaper and a wonderful introduction to her and now she’s here. It’s fabulous to have you with us. Hello…
Saloni Lodha
Thank you for having me.
Elliot Moss
…and welcome. I want to disclose that actually your business is across continents and in lots of places and today our conversation is across a continent because you are the perennial mover around the worlder. Otherwise known as an adventurer and you are today in your home now in Bangkok.
Saloni Lodha
Yeah I am in, I am in Bangkok. I moved here in December and this is, this is probably my sixth move, International move so as much as I sort of create stability, I am excited and nervous every time I arrive in a new country because it’s almost like you are starting fresh and this time it’s, it’s definitely a brave new adventure because I’ve, I’ve come here with kids, dog, the whole family.
Elliot Moss
The whole lot.
Saloni Lodha
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
The whole lot and that sense of adventure Mumbai from your home town, studying and then moving again, meeting your now husband for many years, moving to Hong Kong and all those things. You say you crave stability and yet here you are on your sixth move. What’s, what’s that about Saloni, do you think, I mean for those people that aren’t familiar with your brand and your clothes, you must go online and have a look because they are gorgeous and I say this as a completely silly man who looks at women’s fashion and talks to much more informed people i.e. my wife and other friends who really do understand fashion and all that but what is it that drives that sense of wanting the fresh and the fresh take and embracing that because many people don’t move around like this?
Saloni Lodha
Yeah you know, I think when you did the introduction I think you kind of covered a lot of, of how I grew up but you know I’ll give you a little bit of meat on that. I grew up in a small town in a traditional Jahan community and it was a beautiful upbringing because growing up in such a very close-knit family you know, with many generations living under the same roof, you are always celebrating you know, I always remember my grandmother’s and aunts singing and dancing and there’s always fifty people for meals at home and, and there’s a celebration, it almost feels like you are celebrating, you’re mourning together, you are celebrating, you are doing everything together you know so I guess my sense of stability really comes from having that because until I was 16 you know, I was never alone. There was always a cousin or an aunt, there was always somebody around but I also remembered when I was young always craving independence and freedom because especially in my community in the Marathi community when you are little all your aunts will start talking about arranged marriages and this boy from Bangalore and this boy from you know, and women in our community don’t really work and I would question it without knowing why I was questioning it, I would always question it. I always knew that I wanted to create my own path, I wanted to be independent, I wanted to sort of live life on my own terms and you know, I am so grateful to my family because they entertained those conversations you know, they allowed me to think about those conversations but they always said you know this is how it is and you know later in your life you will come home and you’ll have an arranged marriage because it’s a very important decision because you know Jahan communities they follow quite a strict way of living. So yeah, I have this chaos in me and it is a constant chaos but it helps me, it helps me dream, it you know, gives me that energy every day but you know, I never sort of sat down I guess until I moved away from India and dreamt of having a fashion brand.
Elliot Moss
Saloni Lodha’s my Business Shaper all the way, beamed from Bangkok today for me on this special Jazz Shapers. We are talking about constant states of chaos and craving independence and this sense of being a young Indian woman in India saying, ‘hold on a second, I love my community’, I love what you said about always celebration and the sense of people and generations and yet there you were wanting to create your own path. Interesting when you talked about that, you said your parents essentially allowed it and here we are 20 years later, you created your business 12 years ago, you have embraced the beauty of Indian fabrics and Indian design in a luxury setting if you like. They allowed you to do it. How did they come to that decision, how did that moment happen before you then eventually broke and created this business in London many years later?
Saloni Lodha
Yeah and I think it’s you know, parents give you, I guess they give you an incredible foundation to believe in yourself, to dream and talk about it you know and I remember my… I would always go to my dad and come up with so many dreams and he’ll never say, ‘oh no, no, no, no’ you know, ‘this is not a possibility’ or ‘you’re dreaming too big’, he would just allow those dreams to exist but I always knew at the end of that road I had this arranged marriage waiting for me so I guess from like, I remember I was 13 or 14, I kept talking to my dad, I said, ‘I’m moving to or ‘I’m going to go and live somewhere else and you know, become a potter, I’m going to become an artist or I’ll go live in the mountains’ and he would always smile at me and he said, ‘okay but then you’ll come back and have you know, you’ll have the marriage and you’ll follow the religion and…’. So it was always, it felt like a conversation and it yeah, it always felt that there were possibilities which is an important one, that’s what gives you the strength and really the belief that you can do anything and then when I moved to Bombay, I was in art school and I always you know, I wanted to start earning money as soon as I arrived in Bombay and, and start carving that sort of independent path for myself and I remembered working for a magazine, a very small one and doing their graphic design and it was, it was so satisfying to get that pay cheque every month and then going to my dad and saying, ‘I can do this’ and you know that journey sort of led me to meet my, my husband now which was… it was slightly challenging at that time because my husband was from not just another culture or religion in you know, he was, it was nothing that my family had ever known but, but they came around to it and supported me once they got their head around it. It took them some time but once they got their head around it, they allowed me to live this life and, and I think that’s been a great foundation for me too and those values I foster those values to sort of build the company I have today. If that makes sense?
Elliot Moss
It makes perfect sense and we are going to talk all about how being open and possibilities and dreaming have been a key part of the platform of the business that you have built called Saloni. We will be talking lots about that shortly with Saloni Lodha, my Business Shaper. Right now though, we are going to hear a taster though for the Mishcon Innovation series, a brand new podcast on all of the major podcast platforms. Natasha Knight invites Business Founders to share their industry insights and practical advice for those of you thinking about getting into an industry and starting your very own thing. In this clip focussed on retail and the world of manufacturing we hear from Julie Dean, Founder and CEO of The Cambridge Satchel Company.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and indeed you can hear this very programme again if you pop Jazz Shapers into your podcast platform of choice or if you have got a smart speaker just ask it to play Jazz Shapers and you should be rewarded with a taster of our recent shows. But back to today, my guest is Saloni Lodha, Fashion Designer and Founder of the women’s wear label, Saloni and today it is an International Jazz Shapers Special all the way from Bangkok to London. So let’s move now, you’ve got this bank of great values, they’ve embraced your Italian husband, different continent, different, different culture. All those things and then you set your business up which according to my information Saloni and I know numbers in terms of years aren’t your favourite subject, you are not interested, 2011 which by my reckoning is around 11 years ago. When you set this thing up what was it like in the very beginning. You’re, you’re wearing I think it’s a, they call this a dress, is it a dress or a top that you are wearing today?
Saloni Lodha
Yeah, I am wearing a Saloni dress.
Elliot Moss
A Saloni dress good. What did you have in your mind’s eye in terms of what this thing would be apart from the independence you craved, apart from the beauty that you wanted to bring to it. If you could capture that, okay Saloni when it grows up is going to be ‘insert words’, what were those words at that point? What was the ambition?
Saloni Lodha
I really saw a gap in the market for beautifully crafted dresses with a sense of colour and spirit that I was almost kind of digging for from my memories. I spent all my summers in Rajasthan and I just remembered these beautiful vivid colours but I didn’t want how people imagine India as like ‘oh bright colours and Bollywood’ you know, there’s… it’s very subtle actually the sense of colour is very subtle in India and it is very elevated and we’ve got thousands and thousands years of history in textiles and to celebrate that in a contemporary way was the challenge I was setting myself you know, it was not traditional clothing, it was not even in terms of the prints, it was a sense, it was a feeling that I started with and I vision has never really been led by trends or seasons but always rather for my own sense of how I want to dress every day and how I am serving my customer and their needs because you know, at the end of it like women are busy, women do a lot of things, the designing and from a practical point of view still creating beauty and having fun with the brand you know, lead me to, to create this company and I think that the women who wear Saloni feel that energy.
Elliot Moss
And in terms of the, the famous people that wear your clothes, nice right? Do they, and I am interested when you hear about these names in the media and whether it’s the ex-Prime Minister’s wife or Royalty or whoever it might be, members of the establishment who go to nice openings at galleries and things like that. Is that important to you or is it… are you grounded enough to just say ‘well that’s very nice’ or you know, I am interested in what role it plays in the brand if you like?
Saloni Lodha
To be really honest I live in a bubble, I live in my own world most of the time so I am probably the last one to find out. It is usually a friend and it’s sometimes it’s like my husband’s friend who has read it in the newspaper and he’s… so for me, it’s, it’s incredible and it’s you know, it’s humbling to see these women when they chose to wear Saloni on these occasions but this is not what drives me or I do what I do. You know for me it’s, I spoke about chaos you know, I wake up on most mornings thinking, I question first why I do what I do because no one needs more clothes you know, we have enough. Fashion is a very consumerism driven feel so, so I question why am I doing this. So the journey really begins with the creativity, the people that work with me, the community of artists and collaborations that we do and it’s really a journey, it’s not the destination and, and that journey is so important to me. So yeah, I am always really humbled by amazing things when they happen but for me it’s, it’s the journey, it’s the journey of creating this company.
Elliot Moss
When I was looking at the business and reading around it, obviously being ethical, being sustainable is an important part for you because if you are making things you’ve got to make them in a way which works, which doesn’t destroy the planet and there are a few things you do around… I read about the pack for good policy of sourcing fabrics. I read about obviously some of the charitable things you are doing I mentioned at the beginning this Connecting for India where you are supporting crafts people. That sense of doing good, that sense of the first question you have in the morning being related to this sense of doing good things, not bad things. Is that back to mum and dad, is that back to being a Jahan as well so you think in terms of your values?
Saloni Lodha
Yeah I think it’s definitely you know, Jahanism has shaped a lot of my values and I think also growing up really with so much disparity around me, when you grow up in India you, you learn the importance of cloth very early on right because if you think about cloth, it’s very sacred, it’s in every religious offering it’s you know, it’s celebrated at every, everything that you do but also I’ve seen incredible things of how… no-one lets even a tiny piece of cloth go to waste, they’ll you know, they’ll recycle it, they’ll do something with it so those values have just come from seeing and being around them and you know sustainability really learning about sustainability is a long journey for me because when I started the brand you know, I didn’t sit down and think about every single process, how this is printed or where does this textile come from but the first principle that we really, we founded our brand on we were going to make well-made clothes that were going to last for a long time and that’s a very important one because if you make good clothes you know, they should last you for I don’t know, I sometimes wear my things 150 times, 200 times you know.
Elliot Moss
I am with you. This sweater I am wearing today has been many, many times, I love it. I am never getting rid of it.
Saloni Lodha
You know they are not meant for wearing like two times and then I am going to hide it in my, in my closet so well made clothes and also things that can be passed to your friends or to generations because of course tastes change and you know, what do you want to wear? It’s an important principle for us is how do we make our clothes and…
Elliot Moss
I am sorry, may I just ask, is it, is it really easy to find people who buy into that? As you built your team and I think you’ve got a team around the world, do they go, ‘I totally get it’ and those people, there’s many of them or has it been a process of education?
Saloni Lodha
Yeah it’s you know, my core team, a lot of my team have been with me for a long time you know, I think my textile director has been with me for 8 or 9 years and we have these conversations, we talk about it and when something doesn’t work we you know we say you know, okay we didn’t know about this fabric let’s not use this fabric but most of our fabrics are silk but the construction of clothing is an important one for us and I’ve actually spent a lot of time at factories myself working with tailors and having you know, on the construction how things are going to be finished and how do you make sure that the seams don’t open up and these things are very important because yeah it does give you the longevity and you know, really the most sustainable thing you can do is just be mindful and you know, really thing before buying you know, how much do I love this and you know so many times I’ll have urges to buy things and then I’ll you know I’ll say to myself, okay do I have enough, do I need this you know can I fix what I have and these are just the conversations you need to foster around with everybody and we are trying to do that a lot more with our own customers so it’s, it’s a journey.
Elliot Moss
We’ll have our final chat with my guest today, Saloni Lodha and we’ve got some typically upbeat, even more upbeat than we’ve already had, Herbie Hancock for you today and that’s all coming up in just a moment.
I’m with Saloni Lodha just for a few more minutes. The trajectory of the business, the fact that you have taken an Indian’ness and its beauty and you said about the subtlety of the colours and the vibrancy of the colours and one of the great things I urge you if you are on Instagram to look at this, this is your Holy, I think you called it Holy Saloni – the, the festival you have which is brilliant because my memories of Holy which is a time when people throw stuff at each other basically and get a little bit happy to say the least but you have managed so go on to Instagram and look up Saloni’s Instagram’s handle over there. But your, your sense of and your ability to sell Indian clothes to the world is not a new thing but as I looked at the business and I thought more broadly and of course Indian conglomerates have started to do this much more over the last 20 years, but for individual brands it’s been tricky, most you know, historically India has imported and here you are exporting something which as you said is not the Bollywood version of India, it’s a true version of India. Is there just going to be more of that, is that where this goes Saloni? Are you thinking okay I am going to conquer the rest of the world or you know, what does the plan look like for you now?
Saloni Lodha
I’ve never sort of sat down and thought about oh you know, what do I use from India as my marketing strategy, I’d actually, I don’t do fashion shows, I don’t really do much and I, I like to take my time for creating content I guess for, for the brand or you know or I’ll do a film or I’ll do a collaboration and I was asked to write a project plan for what was the brand going to do for the next few years and I said, ‘you know I really want to create compelling, beautiful experiences and celebration was at the heart of it’. You know I imagine this world where I could bring architecture, I design you know, the clothes, the food and really sort of combine it all together in a narrative and Holy was the perfect backdrop for that and to do it in Rajasthan where my family originates from also gave it so much inspiration to everyone who collaborated on that project.
Elliot Moss
And just to say, just to say for those people, the Holy is a festival and this was a big party where basically Saloni invited lots of people and Holy is all about colour and there is a phrase in Hindi, ‘borano mano holi hai’ I think is right or is that correct? You can correct me because I am just an English person trying to remember the line. Was it that?
Saloni Lodha
It…
Elliot Moss
Or was it ‘borano mano holi holi’.
Saloni Lodha
Holi hai.
Elliot Moss
Holi hai, in other words don’t mind it’s Holy in other words you can do, you can do whatever you want.
Saloni Lodha
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And there was a TV series I never did which was Borano Maro Firangi June, which was don’t mind me I am foreigner. But anyway for those people who speak Hindi you will know that that was relatively funny once probably on a drunken evening. But you, you… so that festival over there embodied it but you don’t strike me as someone who wants world domination. You strike me as someone who is true to their craft…
Saloni Lodha
No.
Elliot Moss
…who wants to create as you said, these experiences and celebration. The clothes are beautiful, they are recognised on these you know, Net-a-Porter’s and Matches and places. I am just interested where it goes from here for you.
Saloni Lodha
Yeah and I think you know for me it’s and I say this with the team you know, there are a lot of printed dresses out there, there’s really actually no need for another brand, there’s no need for another dress so every week I reinforce this message, you know, what’s our story and make it authentic and really true to who we are as a company, as a brand, as… in every single thing that we do and look there is so much information you know, good and bad every day as you wake up on the morning, we are desensitised we… just an overload of information so also when we are creating something as a young company with limited funds and budgets it is important to think I don’t need to do everything on a seasonal basis, I can take my time, I can do something every few years but make it meaningful, make it authentic to who you are you know and, and then people will remember for years to come you know, for me that’s a very important part of our… the way we build the company you know, what’s unique to Saloni, what makes us who we are and then I dream up lots of other projects so it’s, it’s fun that you know, they take years to come together and when they do they have you know, great memories that last.
Elliot Moss
It’s been lovely talking to you, I look forward to seeing more dreams and enjoying memories that last which I think is a wonderful way of putting it and who knew you could do that if you were a fashion business but that’s the point isn’t it, as you said, it’s like knowing your story and going for it and making it yours. Thank you so much for spending some time with me from Bangkok to London, how International are we today, how brilliant.
Saloni Lodha
Thank you Elliot.
Elliot Moss
Just before I let you disappear into the rest of your day, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Saloni Lodha
So I chose Fela Kuti, Water No Get Enemy because my husband introduced me to that song 20 years ago in Bombay and it’s always meant so much to me and, and just the simplicity of the you know, around water and I think the lyrics are so powerful, in few words it says it all so you know, when you asked me to think of that song, it was, it was, it brought me so much joy to sit down and write that email.
Elliot Moss
Fela Kuti there with Water No Get Enemy, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Saloni Lodha. The first question she asked at the beginning of every day is ‘no one needs more clothes so what am I going to do today that is the right thing to do?’ She also talked about it being a journey and not a destination and I absolutely love that thought, that path is as important as where you end up and ideally in fact more important and finally she said in terms of bringing and taking her business forward, what’s our story? We’ve got to make it meaningful and authentic to who you are, in other words don’t do things just because they are fashionable which is absolutely brilliant and the antithesis of what you might have thought she would say. Brilliant stuff. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds of more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to Mishcon.com/JazzShapers.