A cult doesn’t need introduction. And that’s what Fabindia has come to be, and inadvertently so, a cult. The Fabric of Our Lives?The Story of Fabindia is a celebration of all that Fabindia is about ?released to mark its 50th anniversary?the people who who made it what it is and their core beliefs. And that’s what sets the book apart?it doesn’t toe the line most business books follow?narrating one landmark event after another. Rather, the warp and weft of the story is woven through personal stories of the protagonists in the Fabindia saga. Another reason explains the humane touch to the story?the author, in the process of writing the book, relives a part of her own history. She candidly admits how her own home is a ?Fabindia home?. Every inch believable is given to Fabindia’s range, right from furnishings, floor coverings, bed and kitchen linen, organic food, beauty products, jewellery and, of course, apparel.
On August 16, 1958, a young man, ?wearing a wide grin under a crew-cut head of hair, seersucker suit and penny loafers? joined the Cottage Industries Emporium in Delhi as a consultant on a Ford Foundation grant. The man was John Bissell. The one-year grant was extended for another year and soon Bissell was ?actively seeking out and developing new products…ordering material for himself to turn into apparel for his mother’s shop in Connecticut.? However, soon he found himself ?disillusioned by the moral fibre of so many in government office?. In July 1959, he wrote to his parents??the only solution is working for myself and one of these days I am going to start?. And as history would have it, he stayed on and started Fabindia. Bissell invested $4,000 and offered another $30,000 worth of shares.
However, unlike his expectations, the company posted a net loss of $6,000 in the first year. That was to change soon though. September 1964 saw Fabindia’s sales crossing $9,000 in a single month! By the end of 1964, Fabindia recorded sales of Rs 2,05,082 within India and Rs 1,84,318 from export. And then in June 1966, overnight the value of Fabindia’s exports just doubled, because bowing to pressure from IMF, the Indian government announced a huge devaluation of the rupee-dollar exchange rate. Interestingly, despite export quotas being imposed and increasing business overheads due to multiple permits, clearance certificates as well as the Foreign Exchange Regulations Act, Fabindia’s sales curves rose steeply, reporting a 200% increase between 1969 and 1974.
Singh writes that while Fabindia had built itself up as a successful export company from 1960, it was only after the first retail outlet started in 1976 at GK II in Delhi that the brand was born.
Bissell continued to travel the length and breadth of India in search for new fabrics?Koyallagudem in Andhra, Karur in Tamil Nadu, Naugaon near Delhi, Muradnagar in UP, Jaipur. It also, quite literally, reflects in the way Fabindia named its inventory?Bikaner, Barmer, Ellora, Kinnaur, Pokhran… It’s this warmth and passion that also translates into the product. Bissell is remarkable in more ways than one. A satisfied soul, he is known to even send out his balancesheets every year to his associates?anybody he thought may be interested enough to learn something from it?John and Faith Singh from Anokhi, Laila Tyabji from Dastakar. He was so keen to promote the products that he helped set up many people to become exporters?passing on large export orders to them. A gem of a person that he was, he never had to try to hard. On one occasion, he bought a cart load of watermelons from a street vendor because he felt sorry for him standing in the sun. On another, to encourage a woman’s cooperative in Maharashtra, he bought their jams and gave them to the staff as well. Little wonder, the first time he came to Fabindia after his return from the US where he suffered a massive stroke, the N Block market came to a halt?people came out of every shop to meet him, including the mochi and the paanwallah. People stood in the corners and cried.
The journey of Fabindia is replete with such moments. It’s been a splendid journey, currently on a splendid milestone?today the chain has spread to 120 stores and its turnover nets close to Rs 350 crore. And that’s what one must pick up the book for?the moments in its journey.