| | OCTOBER 201919Tell us about your journey as a fash-ion entrepreneur and the inspira-tion that fueled your passion for the industry. My journey as an entrepreneur with KANELLE has been long and exciting at the same time. Having learnt many facets of the business throughout my journey, it has been a great learning process. It has been a very informative and an extremely educa-tional journey, and working with various craftsmen has taught me a lot. KANELLE was purely born out of sheer passion for creativity and my inspiration started from a very early age while growing-up in a place where I saw and learnt from my mother who had a keen sense of understanding textiles that made me very naturally dive into the fashion field. Seeing my mother dress in beautiful textiles while growing-up always made me curious to learn about everything she wore. So for me, the love for fashion and textiles started from there on and led onto becoming a business eventually. Apart from this, I am a voracious traveller and love meeting new people, which has greatly influenced my ideol-ogies and my design aesthetics. What is KANELLE all about and what do you aim to address through your collection?KANELLE is more than just a label. It was born in 2011 with the vision of bringing to women timeless trends handcrafted with love. The name KANELLE itself is a self impression of myself that depicts the combination of `Kanika' & `Elle', which signifies `Kanika's creations for Her'. Kanelle is tar-geted to women who love fashion and believe in defining their own sensibilities through their style by wearing fashion every day. So we cater to women not just in cosmopolitan cities, but also to ardent fashion lovers from tier- II cities. What were the challenges you faced/face in the pursuance of your fash-ion journey and how have you grown over them?The challenges started as soon as I decided to start my own business. From finding the right space, to hunting for the best craftsmen, maintain-ing records and keeping things organized. I consid-er myself a self-taught designer as I learnt every bit of the trade on the job. LCF (London College of Fashion) taught me a brief of everything in fash-ion, but learning to design and develop a cohesive collection, to market and sell it, was a part of some of the main challenges I faced in my many years of business. But each challenge taught me some-thing new that truly revived my focus and brought me back to my vision to create timeless fashion for women. Success is always backed by support & motivation. Tell us about the sup-port you received.It has always been my family that gave me encouragement and motivation to push myself to work harder and achieve my goals. My mother with whom I work together literally supports me every day, and with such a supportive family, it is quite easy to manage a smooth personal & professional life. This is how I have always had this drive to look forward and pursue my dream. ?!?!?!?!WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN FASHION ­ 201910BE S TKanelle is targeted to women who love fashion and believe in defining their own sensibilities through their style by wearing fashion every day
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