Juggling hundreds of task every day and still being considered as a weaker counterpart, women always have to put in an extra effort to make a mark. Especially to mom's who chase leadership thrones, the journey is no less a travail.Gracefully managing everything, several women stand as an inspiration today. Radhika Goyal is one such mompreneur who stands as an inspiration to the one who wants to shine. Right from the beginning of her career, leadership & mettle were deep-rooted within her. In the current business world that is defined by complexity, disruption, and change, she is a perfect leader with a holistic approach, diverse skill sets, multidimensional perspectives, and an empathetic mind-set. She has proved her potential in the capital intensive fashion industry. Amidst several struggles, she grew the company by more than 10X percent when compared to the previous fiscal year. Under her able leadership, the company has grown organically with thousands of happy customers and high customer repetition rate.

Leaders like Radhika Goyal are not only uplifting their own business but also inspiring several mothers to not compromise life. As a person who is determined to drive change and associate with sustainable businesses, she is encouraging people to focus on sustainability in the fashion industry. She believes that Eco-Friendly will be the new trend. For which, she with her team is making eco-friendly products accessible to all at affordable pricing through her brainchild Handme. Recognizing her passion for bringing sustainability and fashion together, Women Entrepreneur India engages in an exclusive conversation with Radhika. Below are the excerpts.

How has Handme's journey been so far? What areas will the company focus on in future?

Handme was ideated in mid 2021 in the Indian online market. In a short span, Handme is available on major market places like Nykaa, Myntra and Amazon in addition to its own website. Our brand is doing extremely well in terms of footfall, we are under the top one percent store. We are profitable with every order and target to close a good revenue number this fiscal year. At the same time, we want to focus more on organic growth in order to have a sustainable and healthy business. With a strong Eco-system of the sustainable supply chain, quality-driven products, marketing strategy, customer delight, and customer advocacy, we want to amplify our value proposition and increase our sales.

What has been the key motivation to establish Handme?

The series of natural disasters continue to rage against mankind as well as Mother Nature. From floods to forest fires, every strike of nature has been severe and wrecking. And none other than humans are to be blamed! On the contrary, human minds are capable of masking the loss. Understanding the negative impact that the fashion industry fosters on the environment, I wanted to bring some change that led to the concept of Handme.

Define Handme as a fashion brand and highlight its USP.

It is a thoughtful sustainable fashion brand offering trendy and eco-friendly designs for women of the era. Sustainable and naturally derived, you can shop all sorts of contemporary and Indian women outfits made of premium quality 100 percent natural and eco-friendly fabric. We believe in refreshing your wardrobe to the greenway where you can make a contribution to the environment with our innovative Buy-back Initiative while earning a lucrative payback amount. Our brand follows a zero-waste approach where all pre-consumer and post-consumer waste are recycled or upcycled to ensure minimum carbon footprints.

Tell us about the various clothing and accessory categories that Handme. Brief about its specialities.

We provide an entire range of women's wear in ethnic, contemporary, and indo-western categories. We are proud to say that Handme is sustainable in the true sense. From procuring sustainable fabric to ethical manufacturing of products and delivering it to customers in sustainable packaging, we pay attention to every detail in order to be sustainable in nature. Hence, our cloth labels are also made up of 100 percent natural fabrics. Our packaging is handcrafted made up of high-quality natural fabrics and is fully sustainable. We ensure that discarded clothes do not go to landfills, instead, these clothes are bought back and recycled/upcycled for preserving the beautiful mother Earth. In addition, we strongly believe in ethical work practices in terms of worker payment and company culture.

From where and how do you procure the raw materials required in the production process?

 We procure 100 percent natural fabrics from premium fabric suppliers all over India. Our team is trained to apply different testing mechanisms to ensure that fabric is 100 percent natural and bio-degradable in nature while procuring. We don't hesitate to pay a premium price in order to ensure that the fabric is pure and eco-friendly.

“Not Only Do We Focus On Minimizing Post-Consumer Waste, But We Also Use 100 Percent Natural Fibres That Are Long-Lasting & Biodegradable; Leaving The Lowest Carbon Footprints”

Throw some light on the brand philosophy behind the clothing line.

Our brand philosophy is to serve Mother Nature and the beautiful women of the country. The model of Handme allows customers not to change their attitude towards and yet become 100 percent sustainable. Our mission is to spread awareness about sustainable fashion in the country. While people talk about sustainability but many fail to embrace it. Through social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Google, we want to educate customers about the necessity of preserving mother Earth and adopting sustainability and make them aware of Handme.

Radhika Goyal, CEO, Handme

Radhika is a sustainable fashion enthusiast bridging the broken value chains in the fashion industry of India.