December - Tyas

Aditi Jaisinghani, an advocate for sustainable, conscious living, and a Fashion Communication specialist by profession, founded Tyas during the second lockdown as a means to spread a message. At a time when things seemed gloomy, she wanted to remind the world how important it was for us to Love ourselves. To keep our heads high and to focus on the good. The pieces she designs at Tyas are full of love and her positive energies.

The Brand Digest recently worked with her for our campaign An Ode To Love and we could not have found anyone better! While speaking to her about the idea of our campaign, we got the opportunity to hear her story and what inspired her to build Tyas. She shared insights on the journey of the brand and also delivered a beautiful message. Aditi is an inspiration, a burst of sunshine and here, we present to you a snippet of our conversation with her.

TYAS - #basicbutnotsobasic

1. Tell us about your journey and how you came to conceptualize the brand.

The journey of Tyas started with a passion for Fashion, while being responsible towards the planet. Coming from a Fashion Communication background, I have experience in various fields of fashion like design, creative thinking, brand building, marketing, etc. I actually conceptualized Tyas on a random day, during the second lockdown while working as a Social Media Strategist for a sustainable fashion brand. While working with them, I learnt about slow fashion and sustainability. That built my understanding of a brand that is pure, organic and promotes green fashion. Thus began long hours of brainstorming, research and USP building that led to Tyas. Our idea behind the brand was to create minimal, basic yet chic and modern clothing. Hence our tagline “#basicbutnotsobasic”.

2. Give us a short introduction of the brand.

Tyas as a brand aims to enhance your wardrobe with detailed yet exquisite embroidery and designs. Update your style with cautiously curated accumulation of aesthetic energy and witty designs. Elegant locally made clothing with modern silhouettes, focusing on Artisanal Textiles and Minimal stand outs. Ditching the regular floral embroideries, our threads takes a unique approach by adding the #basicbutnotsobasic vibe to your outfits!

From sourcing the right fabric to coming up with fiery designs to getting them embroidered to getting them packed in handcrafted packages and finally delivering these extravagant gifts to your doorsteps, SUSTAINABILITY is key.

Spruce up your everyday styling, with Tyas.

3. Why the name? How did you come up with it?

The name is super personal and emotional to me. Since, it has initials of the members in my family- T for Tushar (my father), Y for Yashna (my sister), A for Aditi (myself) and S for Sneha (my mom). This name had been in my head for a really long time somehow and when we had to come up with a name for the brand, it was a no brainer for me. Through “tyas” we want to create a community of like minded people, like family. Who appreciate this initiative by us, support us and contribute to the fashion industry in a positive manner.

4. Does your logo have a special meaning?

The logo has a really personal meaning as well. All the elements you see in the logo - the star, the heart, the flower and the diamond/sparkle - each of these elements have been hand drawn by my family members, then converted digitally and placed onto our logo. The writing in “tyas” is also hand written by me and then converted digitally. So it gives a handmade, raw and natural feel. And that is what Tyas is about. The elements were also chosen since all of them give a positive, bright, spreading love vibe.

5. What was your inspiration and idea behind the brand?

The inspiration came majorly from the brand I was working for. I’ve always wanted to create something of my own and all my past experiences, work or otherwise, have somehow been an inspiration. However, I was always into styling, social media strategy and content creation. Building my own brand was never on my list. The idea of Sustainability definitely came from my last job and from Day 1 I knew that if I created something, it had to be kind on the nature. Soon as the idea of Tyas occurred to me, me and my sister started working on finding the right vendors for fabrics, product research, the kind of people we wanted to work with, visualizing the feel of the brand and eventually everything started falling into place. We took a good 3-4 months to research, find places, find people and then BOOM! We launched our first collection with just 2-3 shirts.

We could have also gone the simpler way with regular fabrics, regular packaging, regular floral embroideries, since all of that is easily available and the cost is low. But knowing the damage and the pollution that causes, we took the harder way but one which also had so much to offer in return.

Sourcing for organic textiles is not easy at all. People are still not aware of what these fabrics are, how they are made- hence it took a really long time to find vendors who understood our thought, our requirements and were certified as well. But today, we can call ourselves “a part of the solution and not the pollution”.

6. What would you say is your USP and Target Audience?

Our USP is surely our #basicbutnotsobasic thread work. When you hear “Embroidered”, instantly the regular flowers, leaves and motifs come to your mind. And that's what we didn't want to follow. Hence, our threads are all inspired by the theme of our collection. It's a cool artwork, threaded on our shirts and that's what makes our shirts stand out and unique.

Our TA is both men and women between the age group of 16-40. People who are willing to add some fun to their wardrobe, who are willing to contribute and understand the whole idea behind the brand including sustainability and the quirky thread work. At first, we mostly did shirts but now we have expanded to occasion wear and vacation fits as well. So ideally people who want clothing to be comfy, minimal with a touch of cool. We also target all the boss babes, since we do have a lot to offer like blazers, shirts, co-ords. Again, they are not strict formals, but clothes that add fun to your regular boring work wear/ daily outfits.

7. You just launched, how has the response been so far?

It has been 10 months since we launched and the response has been nothing but great. Within the first month we did our first pop-up and the response made me realize that we’d created what we wanted to. Each and every person that stopped by said it's something unique, something different and they’d be super happy to wear it since it comes with a purpose and a thought. And we still get that response, both online or offline. Even though you cannot cater to each and every person’s tastes, people appreciate the brand and the idea of the brand existing. We started with 4 shirts and 2 co-ords and within the span of last 5-6 months, we’ve done dresses, more co-ords, ethinc co-ords, men’s co-rds, men’s blazers, men’s kurtas and so many more customisations. That's the kind of love we are getting. Nothing but grateful and looking forward to creating so much more.

8. Where/which direction do you want to take your brand in?

We definitely always want to focus on our ethics and values, mainly sustainability, zero waste, exquisite thread work, the idea of less is more and keeping it natural as much as possible. Since we are at the beginning stage, we look forward to many more experiences to come, all good and bad. We want to have as many collabs, events, pop-ups, and meeting like-minded people, as possible. We aim to cater to a much much larger audience in the future, and contribute something meaningful to the fashion industry and to the environment at the same time. Only upwards and forward from here!!!

9. Tell us something about your collection.

Our first collection is known as #selfloveXtyas.  Welcome to the Self Love Club! Our first collection is all about loving yourself.  What if you cared for yourself like you’d care for a growing plant? Our guess is you’d be joyful and blissful. Keep watering your mind and heart with all the love you can. Being kind to yourself is cool. Taking care of your mental well-being in your own special way is what self love is all about. The last couple of years have been tough on each one of us. Through this collection, we aim to promote self love and making your hearts bloom. Go Love your damn Self!! When you focus on the good, the good gets better!

10. Tell us, what’s so special about your packaging?

We practice Eco-Friendly, Plastic- Free Packaging. Starting with the Cloth bag in which our products are put into. They are made of Organic Cotton, enclosed with a jute rope. Followed by the paper bags made out of recycled paper with rose petals embedded in them. Our corrugated boxes, in which we ship our orders, are also fully biodegradable and planet friendly. Other packaging elements include a Thank You Note which is made of seed paper and printed using eco friendly dyes. Our Tags are also made of Recycled Paper. For tapes we use Kraft paper tapes with water based adhesive.

Each and every element of the packaging has been carefully thought and curated- keeping in mind the aesthetics of the brand, while not harming the environment in any way.

11. Do you have a message for our audience?

We put our hearts in Sourcing the right fabrics from across the country, the ones which are truly sustainable and organic, and focus on reducing our carbon footprint. Our fabrics are 100% biodegradable, non toxic, hypoallergenic and produce no waste. We only use AZO FREE and natural dyes which are very earth friendly as well. We at Tyas believe in Ethical & Fair Trade Fashion. Hence, we support local artisans- they are our backbone.

But, more importantly, we believe in the idea of Self Love and want to spread nothing but kindness through our clothes.