Notting Hill to Kala Ghoda

London's famous Indian bridal wear boutique comes home to India

- NAMRATA ZAKARIA

Some of the best business ideas come from personal spaces. When Aashni Shah got engaged at 21, she was studying filmmaking in London. Like thousands of NRI brides before her, she actually had to travel to India to buy herself something festive to wear for her special day.

"Even if I wasn't looking at only designer clothes, there was just nothing nice to wear. There were stores in Southall and Wembley but they were awful. So I came to Mumbai and visited the Sabyasachi store in Kala Ghoda, and I fell in love," says Shah, now 37. This was circa 2012. Cut to 2023, and Shah has opened her first boutique in the same space, where Sabyasachi, India's most successful fashion designer stood until recently.

Shah realised that there was such a vast difference in how Indian designers made clothes and what was available in the UK, or elsewhere in the world. "Most of NRI fashion was crystals, and OTT embroidery and snake bindis and beehive hair," she says, laughing. Imagine the former Juhu resident show up like that! She was an editing intern at Prime Focus-a media services company that works with film studios, broadcast and advertising industries-since she was 18. She had told her family she was moving to London to pursue an MBA, but enrolled herself in film school instead. Soon enough, she realised the huge gap in the bridal wear market overseas, and rented out a small space in posh Notting Hill. This became Aashni & Co, the first and most well-regarded Indian bridal boutique outside India.