“I refused to act dumb to drag marriage on my shoulders and took the leap of faith.” Pragati Gupta, Fashion designer

Humans often judge people in the space we find them in. Everyone has a story, some narrated, and most less revealed. Here is another one of a successful fashion design and communication professional, Pragati Gupta, founder of Pastelshades & Re-tweaks.

SUBURB, in a candid conversation with Pragati Gupta on how she managed to break free from an abusive relationship, and instead of living as a victim of the situation, she broke the mental and emotional shackles to build her designer label, step by step.

Looking at Pragati, her quiet demeanour, it’s not easy to gaze what she had gone through in her five years of marriage with a two-year-old child when she decided to say, “I am not dumb. I was silently going through the mental, physical and emotional agony to make my marriage work. But it was going down the drain with every passing day. I was told time and again that I was not beautiful. I was dumb until one fine day; I realised my two-and-a-half-year-old son was absorbing what was happening around him, and that gave me all the strength I needed to take my first big step of faith. I ​walked out of my husband’s house with very little money, almost none in my pocket. While packing my suitcase to go to my parents’ house, I knew I wasn’t coming back here to face the hell and continuous bashing of my self-esteem.” Her faith in the bigger picture of life kept her going. “I have a lot of faith in God, and I knew my child has chosen my womb for his birth, and it meant everything to me to gather courage and face challenges that life throws.”

A new lease of life

Founder of an online fashion label Pastelshades and social media startup Re-tweaks, Pragati studied design and communication in college and has more than a decade of experience with a certificate from NSRCEL-IIMB. The single mother chose to step out of her wedlock and start afresh. “It certainly was not easy, given the social web that most women succumb to and when a mother, the pressure is all the more to work out the marriage despite all pains and odds. But for me, my son was my strength, and I wanted to make it big to give him the best of education, values and life. I started to reinvent my passion.”

She took baby steps to explore the unchartered business territory and started selling Dupattas and Jewellery on social media platforms. “I was also freelancing as a social media manager for various startups to support my home and child.” She moved to Gurgaon in 2018 after her divorce and joined networking groups to get to know people in the city.

Patience, continuous hard work and conviction pay off, and finally, Pastelshades happened, which now is a well-known online fashion label with clients spread pan India. It was newfound freedom for her. “My husband would barely give me one thousand rupees for my expenses and asked for details of my expenditure. Being financially dependent on him was humiliating and killing me from the core. My financial independence was the first step that gave back my confidence and self-respect. I urge all women to have their accounts and must have savings for the rainy day,” she said, getting emotional.

Covid Hits
In 2020, Pragati launched Pastelshades as an online platform, only to face the wrath of the Covid lockdown. Her Business came to a standstill. “It was tough, I started working day and night on digital marketing and website projects to keep sailing through the time, and clients started falling out as overall people and companies were facing a financial crunch. In 2021, Pasteshades became part of AIBA, a major support system for businesses to get on track. Post covid, the buying habits of customers have changed. They are comfortable doing online shopping and have understood that they get amazing options online that they might not get in local stores. Some customers now insist on visiting our backend office’s offline design studio, though we do not encourage walk-ins.”

Phases of life

I greatly rely on my network of the girl gang. My friends are my kith and kin; my go-to friends when I feel low. In all these years, one thing I have understood is that time passes. As they say, “Good times pass very quickly, bad time passes slow, but at the end of the day low phase does pass, making each one a stronger version of ourselves.”

Despite having faced the torments of a bad marriage, her faith in the institution of marriage has not faded. “I still really believe in the institution of marriage. Only the person has to be right, and mutual trust and respect are paramount in marriage.”

On the move

Excited with a sparkle in her eyes, she shared, “Pastelshades now has a team of more than 12 employees. We manage to deliver 300+ orders every month through our website and social media platforms across India and internationally. We design and launch 60+ new designs every month. Our products are tailored to fit each customer as we specialise in made-to-order clothing. We get orders from faraway​ ​ states like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Sikkim and supplying to repeat customers gives me immense satisfaction and pride as a designer. As a future growth strategy, we focus on getting our top line to five times what we are now. With an approximate turnover of 50 lacs annually, it’s just the start of a journey, still a long way to go.”

The last word

For women facing marriage traumas, she says, “Do not be afraid to take that one step. It may feel that the world would fall apart; however, you would only come out stronger by regaining your self-respect. It’s worth that one big leap of faith.”