If there’s one thing that we will never have enough of – it would be sarees! Ok fine, I’ll speak for myself. But here’s highlighting one business that has taken a fast fashion approach in the world of sarees.
We hear stories all the time about how a trip to Chennai or Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu, India inspired the beginning of a saree business. But the story of Urban Silks is a little different – it started from a gesture of love from a Husband to his beloved wife!
Mrs. Gowry Mano had an unlimited supply of latest designer sarees, all thanks to her husband who was a frequent business traveller to India. He would return from every trip with sarees that caught the attention of not just Gowry, but her friends as well. As this continued, they realized the potential in turning their admirers into clients by starting a small home-based saree business called “Gowry Silks.”
Their collection of handpicked sarees were sold out of a small corner at their house but ended up attracting a clientele that exceeded their initial expectations. Within a short time, Gowry Silks became a well-known name within their social circles.
With the help of Gowry’s children and the power of social media, their Facebook page spread quickly to a larger network in Toronto with a drastic increase in sales from 2009 to 2012. The success of their home based business led to renaming Gowry Silks as Urban Silks, in addition to a grand launch of a store in Scarborough around 2013. Subsequently, the Manos realized that having a store in the heart of Scarborough not only attracted members of the South Asian community but welcomed many from the North Indian and international communities as well. And like most successful businesses do, they catered to this new range of clients by importing sarees directly from North India to bring a piece of home to them.
In the midst of a successful business and possible expansion, Urban Silks was faced with a huge barrier – the pandemic in 2020! Similarly to many small businesses, the pandemic took a toll on their trade and their in-person interaction, which was one of the best parts of the whole experience.
Being a team that focuses most of their attention to the ongoing relationship with their clients, Urban silks is continuing to stay committed to their vision of providing affordable sarees that is easily accessible to everyone by revamping their store based business back to an online platform. As part of this new focus on the online world and social media, Urban Silks launched an initiative in 2021 to give a few remarkable women on social media an opportunity to produce a vision with their sarees and showcase their freedom of creativity.
As of June 28th, the newly revamped Urban Silks is live to saree lovers all across North America!
Hope you have a chance to visit their site and continue supporting local businesses in their process of recovering from the pandemic!
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