Be your own metrosexual man. Vitruvien bespoke fashion on the click

Men’s fashion and clothing is far evolved compared to grooming or personal care, where brands have only just entered the market. Customised or bespoke clothing has a big market in India, however, easy availability of brands and proliferation of modern retail has changed the trend to a large extent.

Off-late, e-commerce has added another dimension to the men’s apparel market. We’ve previously written about startups like Buttons & Threads, who’re betting on this opportunity. Now, Mumbai-based Vitruvien is a new addition to the space. Rajesh Garodia, Esha Jaggi and Puneeta G. co-founded the startup, which aims to bring high quality products and fashion to Indian men.

Garodia comes from one of Mumbai's leading textile retail families with experience in bespoke manufacturing. Leveraging his knowledge and technical expertise, he’s been instrumental in setting up a manufacturing unit to lead production at Vitruvien. Puneeta has personal interest in fashion, and takes care of design and manufacturing at the startup. Jaggi, the third co-founder, is a marketing specialist, Vitruvien’s expert on brand communication, sales and operations.

How it works

Vitruvien allows customers to select fabric, submit measurements online (it also collects best fitting shirts if the customer prefers), then makes to order the shirt they need. Launched in November 2013, Garodia claims Vitruvien has seen ‘tremendous growth’. Their services are available across India, and from order placement to delivery it may take upto 15 days for one shirt to be delivered.

Talking about market opportunity, Garodia says online apparel market in India is estimated to be worth Rs 3,000 crore, of which men’s wear comprises 60%.

“The overall online retail space is growing at a phenomenal pace. While readymade brands have flooded the online market,” says Garodia, adding, “There is still a huge opportunity for custom-made apparel segment. We’re aiming to be among the pioneers in this category.”

Market reach

Vitruvien targets its audience through digital and social platforms. For this festive season, they’ve launched a ‘Gift of Custom’ concept that allows people to gift a customized shirt through Vitruvien’s e-gift voucher.

Working professionals from metros, Tier 1 and 2 cities are typical Vitruvien customers. Men predominantly in the age group of 25-50 years, both working professionals and entrepreneurs, shop regularly from Vitruvien.“A lot of men face difficulty in fitting into average sizes of readymade shirt brands. Vitruvien helps them with solutions through its offerings,” says Garodia.

The co-founders look after overall strategy, operations and marketing, while customer queries and quality control are taken care of by other team members. At present, the startup is self-funded. Talking about the challenges he faced in the journey so far, Garodia says they had to deal with dual challenges – on one hand, the market was new, niche, and prospective consumers were sceptical. On the other hand, the e-commerce market itself was quite saturated, which gave consumers a lot of options to shop from.

Vitruvien is in the process of developing a 3D customizer to enable customers to view their shirt design in real time. Expanding their collection of offerings, providing more options to customise and ability to choose from a myriad of styling options (from collars, sleeves, cuffs, right to the smallest button) are some of the other plans in the Vitruvien pipeline.

“For years now, men have been struggling to fit themselves into standard sizes of readymade shirt-makers and are restricted by the limited choices available. Therefore, by giving men shirts that are perfectly tailored to fit their unique size, we want to make bespoke the choice of dressing for the discerning Indian man,” says Garodia of his ambition.