Why small is significant for Rina Singh

When sustainability was the buzziest word at fashion weeks in India, several brands emerged and were quick to align themselves with the green path. Over time, many fell off the list, but a handful survived. Among them was the notable and quiet Eka. Launched in 2011 by Rina Singh, Eka exists somewhere in between its founder’s idealistic vision for a textile-forward brand and the physical expression of it that is to be consumed. Through Eka, Singh is also nurturing a mindset—to exist mindfully and retain a sense of individuality and identity in a world rushing transformations and newness one reel at a time.

Singh found her design feet researching textiles and craft clusters in the R&D department of NIFT Gandhinagar. She took those learnings to a corporate stint at Wills Lifestyle, where she headed womenswear design. She cites Archana Shah of Bandhej as instrumental in guiding her understanding of how a modern, commercial fashion designer could harness the power of traditional craftsmanship. A stint studying in London led her to examine who she was making clothes for, and the role of Indian crafts and textiles in a global context. “After I travelled the world, I realised that craft was a big part of labels like Anthropologie, Free People, and Fig.” Several designers in India take on export orders for these labels as an entryway into international business.

Despite the tepid interest in her first collection (at a trade show in London), Singh soldiered on, taking a chance on her instinct. Since then, she’s built a signature look that straddles comfort and delight, and has garnered fans from Somerset to Sydney. It’s a combination of whimsical volume and tender embroideries, delicate lace and painterly block prints. A decade later, her label continues to grow at an unhurried pace.

The Nod  chatted with her about the journey she’s on to create the kind of brand that hasn’t existed before.

How did Eka happen?

The DNA of Eka was set in the first two years of its inception. I started the brand after 10 years of being in the industry, so I knew what I wanted. I always understood design, but India’s ecosystem is so vast. My upbringing was so deeply entrenched in craft and rural India [both her parents are agriculturists and educationists], so I have always valued community living and the everyday local intelligence of crafts. 

My first collection didn’t get a lot of business, but I encountered many interesting people and eventually received an order. For me, that first little success was enough for me to find my direction in the world, and I just wanted to do better from there. It was a lot of learning—building your visual library and vision, finding the best textiles, figuring out who will wear your clothes and how they will wear them. I am very happy for the small success I had early on because it made me want to grow. Had that not been the case, my vision would have become narrower. In that sense, I did find the universe I wanted to fit in, and I needed to find the right tools to grow in it. 

How do you measure success and growth? 

Earlier you could only be a domestic or an international brand—either people would understand your ethos in India or you could have a strong presence outside—but now I feel like that is merging. There are a lot of misconceptions about clothes like ours; people think the product is not for the fashion conscious. High-street labels like Zara and H&M often don’t fit Indian women well, so it’s only the younger women, who aren’t so inhibited about the way the look, who are seen in these clothes. I knew I could work with women and their personalities through the clothes I make. My dream is to tell them to come and try what we have because once they start wearing us, there’s no going back! Sometimes it’s as simple as attending an event in something we made and getting noticed for it—that gives them confidence. 

I think we have done well, but I am hungry for so much more. There’s a lot of noise around the brand, but it feels as though it’s only for visual impact, we don’t know the reality of it. In terms of our foundation, we are pretty strong. It’s now a matter of how many floors above we want to build. 

What do these floors translate to? 

We already have menswear. I think that between the costumes of the Raj and Fabindia, there hasn’t really been an evolution of Indian menswear and we are keen to fill up the space. I do two seasons a year for Eka and I do Eka Core, which is slightly monochromatic and transitional—it speaks all the languages I want to about sustainability, repurposing textiles, and making clothes last longer in wardrobes. Now that I have opened my first retail store in India [in Delhi], I want to cater to two seasons in India. But in India, we have spring/summer, monsoon, festive, and weddings and so far, I only have spring/summer, so I’d like to address the rest. I want to speak to the South differently because the lifestyles there are so different. I’d like to do more communication activities, more retail, more shows, cross-collaborations with other brands. We recently worked on a project with Royal Enfield to create this exquisite yarn from different territories and teams—those kinds of things can only happen in India. 

Who helps you with the non-core design functions? 

Largely, the work at Eka is divided between me and my husband, Sandeep [Dua]. We studied together; I started working in the industry after graduation and Sandeep started his own business right after. He is quite sound with handling the financials and operations, so it’s mostly between us. For a boutique product like ours, a lot can go in a different direction if we don’t look into it, so we are very dependent on the skill set we have built within the teams. 

Have you been tempted to create clothing that’s trend forward? 

No, never—I don’t think I’d be good at it. All of us fear failure although it accounts for half your success. When I started Eka, I wasn’t fresh out of college, figuring out where to go, so in an attempt to minimise failure, I didn’t attempt to go in that direction—I knew I wouldn’t be some flying success in it. 

Have you passed up funding? 

Several times—there’s more besides money that we need. That acumen I haven’t really been able to build. I want to build teams of people who give me more than what I already know I’m hungry for. I am trying to build a brand that doesn’t exist, so I need people to visualise campaigns, a brand identity, which will happen when it does. Why do we aim to create more? That’s something I need to know. 

How do you nurture the talent of young people at Eka, who are used to a rushed pace? 

I think there’s a breed of creative people who feel overwhelmed by the world today and Eka is an oasis. Kids these days—their world and goals are different. I cannot change what they see through their lens, but I can only show them what we do here and how authentic and soulful that is. Fashion offers expression, but it is also so transient that it can leave you empty. In the corporate world, it is a lot about what you can project, so for me to give creative people an expression of who they can be and what they can achieve in a place like Eka feels limitless. I can give them direction, which so many of them need in their life. I have conversations with them because a lot of what I see on their face is their defences and not their entire creative selves. They feel defeated and left behind in the pace of the world around them, but at Eka, it is a slower pace. Instead of doing colours on the computer, you spend time doing them with a masterji on the table. If someone is not feeling up to it, I ask them to spend the day photographing what’s around them. Let me see what inspires you, I tell them. I could have definitely done with mentoring like that when I was younger.  

Hair and make-up by Lalrinmuana Varte