The Go-To Youth Brand

Some people start from nothing and then boom to become an inspiration for everyone. One such individual is Dhiraj Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO, Campus Sutra Retail. “I was born in a small village with a population of 2,000 people, I was one of the first who could converse in English there. My life in some way has been about challenging the status quo and achieving in a constrained environment. Succeeding despite resistance and limited resources and continuing to do so,” says Agarwal.

The story of Campus Sutra is a mirror image of his life where Agarwal has challenged the status quo of the industry and made a mark. They have created the biggest bootstrapped fashion brand in the country -- Campus Sutra today is a 200-crore brand that has many firsts for its name. They are the only Indian fashion brand to be present in 22 countries, and the first online fashion brand to be present in 500 offline locations of the top five department stores of India.  

Campus Sutra is a digitally vertically native brand built with a shoestring budget. The brand was built based on usage, where the customer used to buy the product, love it, rebuy, and spread the word. They are the de facto campus brand in India. “Campus Sutra has created a differentiated back end which is the backbone of our entire supply chain which sets us apart from others in the industry. Another factor that sets them apart is that we have been able to achieve this scale with less than 10 per cent of what other brands spend to reach the scale,” says Agarwal. This is a seminal feat because they were competing with brands that spend 10 to 12 times the amount they do.

Campus Sutra is now a house of D2C brands with Campus Sutra, Instafab, Sohi, Wallopedia, Water Theory, Via Tokyo under its umbrella. With this, they are trying to leverage the engine that Campus Sutra has built. Talking about his plans henceforth, Agarwal notes, “We plan to reach out to a much larger base across the world and continue delighting the shoppers with our offerings. International expansion is one of our top priorities.”