For a brand that dates back to a time when tailored clothing was de rigueur for fashion conscious men, Donear has ridden the winds of change to emerge stronger and better prepared for the future. With the recent acquisition of Grasim Bhiwani Textiles Ltd and OCM Woollen Mills, the brand looks poised to take on the men’s fashion firmament by storm under its dynamic managing director, Rajendra Agarwal.
VISHWANATH AGARWAL, THE MAN WHO TOGETHER with his sons Rajendra and Ajay founded Donear Industries Ltd, is 79 years old now. Despite his advanced age, he remains connected with the business, though it is elder son Rajendra Agarwal who runs the show, with, of course, brother Ajay shouldering part of the responsibilities.
The birth of a brand
Talking about Donear’s inception, Rajendra Agarwal enumerates his father’s many positive attributes, before taking us back to the year 1959, when Vishwanath Agarwal left home in Lakshmangarh, Rajasthan to make his future in Bombay (now Mumbai). In Bombay, he took to trading in mulmuls (grey fabric used for making saris, dhotis, etc), working hard to stabilise the business, but only to lose it all in a devastating fire in 1971. Starting anew, he got into a partnership to trade in Jiyajeerao Cotton Mills’ newly introduced synthetic fabrics in 1972-73, but not really content with being a trader, in 1977 he coined the Donear brand name and took to small scale manufacturing, backed by rented looms at Bhiwandi (in Bombay).
Vishwanath Agarwal had no serious plans to turn textiles into a family business by inducting his sons into it, until an unsavoury incident that called his technical knowledge of weaving into question had him change his mind. With that, he swore to turn his son Rajendra into a textile engineer. Rajendra Agarwal, on his part, agreed without demur, his only condition being that he would put up a factory and wouldn’t be just a trader.
With that, the academically brilliant Rajendra Agarwal proceeded to Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute in Bombay to do his BTech in textile engineering and then joined ranks with his father in Donear, after passing out with a gold medal.
Big-time business
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