Winner 2021
Sujata and Taniya Biswas
Nominations: 2021
Category: Business & Entrepreneurship
Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
About Sujata and Taniya: An alumna of IIFT Delhi, Sujata always felt something was missing in her job. Whenever she went back to visit her parents, she came across a lot of... Read More
Congratulations Sujata and Taniya
Our heartiest congratulations to iWGA 2019 winners. We are proud of you and so is the Nation. Keep shining & motivating others.
Work Description
Suta is the coming together of heartfelt love for sarees, a fondness for simple elegance and immense reverence towards makers, weavers and artisans. Suta literally means ‘thread’ and true to the name, every product is crafted consciously with utmost love for every single thread. Suta also stands ... Read More
- She The People Award
- Times She UnLTD Entrepreneur Award
- Best Brand Award by Little Black Book
- Leading Handcrafted and traditional weaves brand by Economic Times Read More
Video
Project Details
We are a small yet fierce family of 2500 weavers and artisans together and we are growing bigger and closer, bound by our affinity to authenticity and of course, great taste! Suta is a mindful clothing brand started by 2 entrepreneurial sisters. We started with an initial investment of of 1.5 ... Read More
- More than 2500 weavers
Photos
Label
Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error
Project Details
We are the first-ever sustainable clothing brand to ever have a podcast. The humble saree is unisex, unbiased and a gender-neutral attire which never goes out of style but definitely travels country to country. This versatile attire is worn by the richest person to a daily wager. So what makes i... Read More
- First Indian Saree Podcasters
Photos
Label
Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error
Work Description X Close
Suta is the coming together of heartfelt love for sarees, a fondness for simple elegance and immense reverence towards makers, weavers and artisans. Suta literally means ‘thread’ and true to the name, every product is crafted consciously with utmost love for every single thread. Suta also stands for Su and Ta, Su for Sujata and Ta for Taniya. The story of Su and Ta started way before they became Suta. From playing shop-shop with cousins and pretending to be entrepreneurs, running around their grandmother’s soft sarees drying in her garden to spreading that love to thousands of Suta Queens, the journey of these two sisters is endearing. Every product at Suta has a story behind it, an inspiration behind it. These stories and inspirations can be about entities as little as fireflies to ones as all-encompassing as the universe! From the masterful hands of the weavers to the wardrobes of Suta Queens, a Suta product sees multiple million-dollar smiles. The Suta Queens describe the comfort that a Suta product gives them in the most loving manner and sometimes they can’t help but burst into poetry! Together, the stories, the sarees, the authentic origins, the sustainable ethos and the ‘dipped in love’ feel is what sets Suta apart.
About Sujata and Taniya X Close
An alumna of IIFT Delhi, Sujata always felt something was missing in her job. Whenever she went back to visit her parents, she came across a lot of traditional weavers with whom she used to end up chatting and they used to pour their hearts out about lack of work and menial wages. Their amazing skills were awe-inspiring but she came to know that their livelihoods were a question mark in many cases. These conversations were etched deeply in her heart and prodded her on to a path of working to improve the livelihood of these disempowered
communities. Taking a plunge into an industry with no prior experience or knowledge was one of the biggest risks she took in her career. But what drove her to do the same was her passion and belief in the weavers and the urge to make a difference in the lives of many such communities across India. ‘The idea isn’t about working with a single weaver or a couple of weavers but adopting the entire family of weaver and empowering them. Thereby, making our own family bigger, one weaver at a time’, says Sujata Biswas.
Taniya, an engineer from NIT Rourkela and IIM Lucknow post graduate, worked for almost three years with the Tata group and IBM. A voice within her drove her towards entrepreneurship and she took the bold step of listening to it. She calls herself an observer and loves to watch how everything in life is so beautifully intertwined with nature and the world around us. This kindled the creative streak in her to paint and to take photographs. After quitting her cushy corporate jobs, she grappled with many ideas, even tried her hands at product photo-shoots, before realizing that her true potential was not in the pictures but in the products itself. “I had designed
a few clothes and had posted them, but instead of getting requests for shoot we were asked about the products,” Taniya says. She found that her affinity for simple, minimalistic, nostalgic sarees that reminded her of a bygone decade, which were very rare to find in the market, was loved by people. What followed next was a quick pivot where she went on a hunt for the right fabric and skilled weavers across the nooks and crannies of rural India. The search took her to the remote villages of Madhya Pradesh; Meghalaya; the home of Banarasi sarees - Varanasi; Maniabandha in Odisha etc. There has been no turning back for her since then.
The sisters take pride in complementing each other’s skill-sets while having the same vision. From playing games in childhood, where they brought their cousins together to make products out of waste fabric and selling it on carts, to creating a Suta family today, theirs has been a heartwarming story.
More than 2500 weavers X Close
We are a small yet fierce family of 2500 weavers and artisans together and we are growing bigger and closer, bound by our affinity to authenticity and of course, great taste!
Suta is a mindful clothing brand started by 2 entrepreneurial sisters. We started with an initial investment of of 1.5 lakhs each and are now a 10-15 crore business. We are completely bootstrapped and our only aim is to reach as many weavers and artisans as possible. We currently have more than 1500 weavers and artisans working solely for us
First Indian Saree Podcasters X Close
We are the first-ever sustainable clothing brand to ever have a podcast. The humble saree is unisex, unbiased and a gender-neutral attire which never goes out of style but definitely travels country to country. This versatile attire is worn by the richest person to a daily wager. So what makes it so loved? That’s what Musings of Suta is all about.
