Luxury & Livelihood

Social entrepreneur Gauri Malik’s label Sirohi provides women artisans design support to make sustainable products for eco-conscious buyers

- Shweta Bhandral

Born in Muzaffarnagar, the Uttar Pradesh town infamous for its 2013 riots, and educated in an elite residential school in Dehradun, Gauri Malik acquired a keen understanding of both worlds. Today, the 34-year-old cofounder of lifestyle brand Sirohi is using her experiences and resources to build a luxury label that empowers women from small-town India.

While pursuing her Master’s in finance and economics from the University of Warwick, Gauri had a chance to work in a small village in Peru. The project provided microcredits to single mothers helping them to start businesses, making them self-reliant. The experience marked the beginning of Gauri’s journey to do impactful work.

At the age of 23, Gauri launched her first project, Skilled Samaritan Foundation, which aimed to light up villages in India using solar power. The project provided electricity to three villages, 10 schools and impacted over 25,000 lives. But Gauri had to pull the plug. She shares, “I never believed in charity as a model for impact, and so we charged the locals a small amount. Six months down, people started defaulting. I began questioning my business model, and took a step back.”