Crafting Her Destiny: The Unconventional Journey of Shilpa Sharma
At business events or even at social to-dos, Shilpa Sharma has often faced a sudden tap on the shoulder, followed by an awestruck: “Omigod, you’re the founder of Jaypore?” Soon enough, women in the room flock to her with fangirl giggles and selfie requests. I, too, was keen to connect with her on LinkedIn, as an avid admirer. Sharma’s response to all this attention is an abashed, “I’m so deeply embarrassed, I want to crawl under the table and hide.”
Jaypore, a brand known for showcasing impeccable craftsmanship, felt like a natural extension of who she was after her twelve-year stint at Fabindia. Where she had personally fought to open stores on high streets and in trafficky commercial districts – for instance, on Commercial Street in Bangalore or inside the Spencer Plaza in Chennai. This meant that the brand had to step off its lofty perch as a “destination” store: “The powers that be at Fabindia thought I was going to run the brand into the ground by opening stores in random commercial markets instead of keeping it a ‘destination’.”
Seeds of Rebellion, Threads of Style
Nonconformity or dissent had been braided into Shilpa’s DNA from an early age. As a feisty teenager raised in a conservative, joint family in Mumbai, she found herself resisting the role she was expected to play. Though her upbringing was nurturing and loving, she felt she needed to battle her way into becoming a career woman. “I didn’t want to cow down to family pressures – to beliefs like ‘girls in our family don’t go out to work’, ‘you don’t need to work’ . I was willful, and unwilling to conform to the life ‘good girls’ in the family led.”
She didn’t want to fall into roles defined by others. Like toeing the marital line with a suitable boy, then morphing into an uncomplaining wife and mother: “Because that wouldn’t be me. I had too much at stake.” She was too young then to arrive at the wisdom she would gather later: “Now I have the language to piece together stuff I couldn’t say then.” She assumed, as did others, that her disagreement implied that she didn’t respect her parents. Now, with the self-assuredness of someone who’s also a parent, she says: “Disagreement does not mean disrespect.”
In her home, her father was the authority figure. Though Sharma’s mother never voiced her opinions, she seemed to offer her daughter a wordless and perhaps tremulous support. Shilpa wasn’t just balking at the idea of an early marriage. She seemed to be developing her own aesthetic style that was at odds with her family’s notions of dressing. Her mother scoffed at cotton sarees and mostly wore Garden Vareli type sarees that were just so “practical”. Sharma, however, was drawn to the way a best friend’s mother outfitted herself: “Everything that auntie wore looked like a million bucks on her. My sartorial choices were a function of bits and bobs I could get from how she put things together.”
Breaking Norms, Exploring New Terrains
Later, during her years at Fabindia, and after she had founded Jaypore, she was often invited to be on design juries at NIFT and other prestigious fashion design institutes. Running their eyes over her own clothes and accessories, and by the brands she had shepherded, folks assumed that she had been raised with that kind of aesthetic. “If only they knew,” she laughs.
There had always been this innate curiosity to expand her world, and cross familiar boundaries. When it came to college, her father thought she was applying to Ruia in Matunga. While standing in those queues with a best friend who wanted to be a doctor, Shilpa realized this wasn’t who she wanted to be. Taking another bold plunge, she headed to St. Xavier’s.
By then, her father had somewhat resigned himself to his willful daughter’s do-it-my-way streak. There was a time, she reminisces with a laugh, when there was a curfew in Mumbai, and her father needed to pick her up from college. When he spotted girls in miniskirts and shorts, smoking in the canteen, he nearly died of culture shock. Later, when she had an easier relationship with him, he always joked that it was the college that really “did her in.”
Choosing To Work
After Xavier’s, she delayed marriage by heading to Business School, promising that after graduating, she wouldn’t ask to work. Two years in Business School gave her the gumption to break that promise. Spending a few years in advertising and marketing – including stints in an ad firm, at Cadbury where she met her husband, and later at the progressive Marico – she had a gnawing inner voice that seemed to tug her elsewhere.
Becoming a Mom at 31, compelled a brief break. Having visited the Fabindia store in Delhi, she met with William Bissell, son of the founder John Bissell. She asked him to inform her if a store ever opened in Mumbai. So, she could shop there, because she loved the feel of their stuff. Six months into her maternity leave, William called with an unexpected “We’re ready to come to Mumbai. Would you like to work with us?”
That was in 1998. Over the next twelve years, as a Senior Leader at Fabindia, she opened 92 stores and handed over contracts to open another 36 over time. Through that period, she crisscrossed the country, discovering her fondness for travel. Tired of the rinse-repeat of opening stores, she felt like she was stuck in a loop. She wasn’t someone who could abide with not learning.
Quitting Fabindia and Her Marriage
When she walked into William Bissel’s room to quit, it was evident to her that her dreams and aspirations for the brand were miles ahead of where the business wanted to be. “There comes a time when I feel I’ve learnt what I could from this, now it’s time to move forward. The time I quit Fabindia was one such moment for me.”
Not one to shy away from tough decisions, she also quit her 17-year-old marriage: “The life I wanted was not the life I had – so something had to change. The gulf between the two was growing at a rapid pace – the idea of me and the person I really was.”
Building Four Memorable Ventures
Around the same time she started her consulting practice in 2010, she also founded Breakaway, a travel company that curates bespoke travel experiences that can traverse craft and textile, culinary, historical or social dimensions. It’s an enterprise she continues to build, forging a diverse, gender-sensitive venture in a male-dominated domain.
Through a chance introduction, she met Puneet Chawla, a young software engineer who wanted to build something, but without a clear idea of what he wanted to sell. Sharma knew exactly what she wanted to sell. Apparel and products based on extraordinary craftsmanship, designed with finesse and flair. Occupying a niche between unaffordable luxury and Fabindia. While also building her consulting practice, she started out by spending two days a week on what would become Jaypore – a brand that became a much larger business that was eventually acquired by the Aditya Birla Fashion Retail Group in 2019.
While running her Consulting practice, Breakaway and Jaypore, a chance opportunity to do something around food with her dear friend Punam Singh came up. The duo fashioned a curated food experience, Mustard, restaurants with a presence in Goa, and over time in Mumbai. Serving two distinct cuisines – Bengali and French – both of which share a common ingredient, these spaces radiate the care and singularity that has marked all of Sharma’s enterprises.
As she looks back she realizes she has been in recovery and discovery. Life continues to give her an opportunity to evolve, and the choice to take it or not is hers to make. When people tell her today that she seems so “sorted,” she says she never felt sorted for much of her life. Perhaps, now she can claim to be living in a manner that resonates with her authentic self.
Lessons from Shilpa Sharma
Conversing with Sharma felt invigorating in the way that certain books and movies do. Here are some powerful takeaways for all women, for founders and creative entrepreneurs, for anyone who wants to listen to a voice that’s reflective, nuanced and original.
Her Zeal to Learn
She says that the day she stops learning will be the day she dies. While this zeal prompted her exit from Fabindia and her later founding of Jaypore, Breakaway and Mustard, she insists even during the space of our short interview that I challenge her with “new” questions, with tough ones that will push her boundaries. Like Maya Angelou, an author that Sharma draws inspiration from, her mission is not merely to “survive” but to “thrive.”
When accompanying her husband to England, she couldn’t get a job. Instead, she attended a summer course at the London School of Economics. Those six weeks were so enticing, she felt like she could start all over again to just stay on and learn in that kind of intense and challenging environment.
Gentle Ways of Disagreeing
Sharma also realizes, with the perspective that age proffers, that perhaps she could have negotiated with her father instead of outright opposing his views. But she also says, in the generation that had little exposure to the world outside school books and parental diktats, she lacked the language to defend her views and to forgive herself. “Concepts like self-love, and radical honesty didn’t exist and we certainly did not have the vocabulary to express ourselves the way kids today do.”
She’s really heartened that current generations are asking questions about patriarchy, purpose and body image to name a few . “It took me to get to my 40s, to ask some of these questions. I want to say ‘Thank you’ to these young women I meet every day and learn so much from.”
Learning Whom to Trust
One of her learnings from the businesses she has run has centered around trust. Sometimes folks you trust most will hurt you. They will throw you under the bus without a second thought. Such lessons should not make you wary of all people. Or too cynical. In any case, such cynicism has never been part of her DNA. She also realized, especially as a woman, that she has a gut instinct about people. She now heeds her inner voice more than she used to earlier.
Heeding One’s Gut
Sometimes that inner voice gives you messages that you may not want to hear. For instance, in romantic relationships, you might observe red flags, but you might blind yourself to them. Because you’re so focused on what you’re trying to build, or on the future you plan to have, you ignore all discomfiting signals. Later, when you look back at certain situations, you realize there were multiple epiphanies.
Hard work pays off
She’s inspired by the words of Eckhart Tolle: “From a higher perspective being challenged is a good thing.” With a throbbing awareness that obstacles arise all the time – difficult people, difficult situations – she realizes that break downs are also an opportunity for something else to break through.
In her own words: “Once I commit to something, and have a foolhardy desire to see it work I can’t imagine what it would take for me to quit. The purity of my intent for Jaypore and my other ventures was always linked from my heart to my head.”
Forging Lingering Experiences
Sharma has set up four successful businesses – Jaypore, Mustard, Breakaway and her consulting venture. But she doesn’t evaluate success in sheer financial terms. It’s about creating products and experiences that linger with people in memorable and affecting ways. When you carry a bit of Jaypore into your home – whether it’s a Kurti or a shard of jewelry or a hand-woven dhurrie – you are also carting an appreciation for artisans and craftpersons and a pride in indigenous aesthetics.
At Mustard, two cuisines abide with each other without being fused, with an easy tolerance that has always characterized a syncretic nation. As Sharma puts it, “The feeling attached to that experience of the brand has to stay with people long after the meal they’ve had or the beautiful textile they’ve bought.”
Tellingly, with each of these ventures, “the brands have become much bigger than the businesses.” She herself has never obsessed merely with the topline but has carefully and astutely cultivated brand personas.
Creating Distinct Value Propositions
She was very clear when she set up Jaypore that it was going to be distinct. Not a Fabindia ‘me too’. Similarly, with Breakaway, she was clear that they were not just another travel company. There were enough out there with a cookie cutter approach to doing tailor made itineraries.
In all her businesses, there has been a signature aesthetic. Shilpa can conceive of a type of woman who wears Jaypore, has a home styled with Jaypore rugs, eats at Mustard, and travels with Breakaway. There’s something coherent across these experiences. Which is, perhaps, a love for “all things beautiful”.
On Partnerships and Cofounders
Also, on co-founders and partners, she says that when you realize that there is no alignment between your aspirations for what you’re building and those of your partners, it’s best to cut the cord and forge ahead, without investing too much time, effort and energy into the partnership. This is a lesson derived from a lived experience
Powering On Despite Obstacles
“Every door you close behind you, opens another in front.”
All her creativity has emerged despite always having scarce resources. Soon after her divorce, she wasn’t really in a financial position to take any risks. Definitely not the kind of risks required of an entrepreneurial journey. Yet, she decided to give into her gut instinct, despite having very little in the bank.
She also says that if she had enough money at that point, it might have made her complacent. Often, as Sharma puts it, “adversity creates room and space for innovation and magic.”
When she meets young girls, who talk about constraining circumstances, she tells them to get over it. After all, she hardly had the kind of circumstances at home that were conducive to the trajectory that her life took.
She made it happen, despite hurdles on many fronts. She recalls a line from Oprah’s address at the school for girls she runs in Johannesburg “You are not your circumstances. You are your potential.”
Integrating Life and Work
She realizes too that her entrepreneurial journeys would not have been possible inside the confines of her marriage. The rollercoaster of a business often requires unpredictable schedules, many hours spent on building the business.
Entrepreneurship takes a lot more headspace, physical and mental energy and time than a job does, regardless of seniority in the hierarchy, regardless of whether you’re a Solo entrepreneur or in a partnership. The biggest support for women entrepreneurs needs to come from home.
As she puts it: “If as an entrepreneur, I have to be the provider and the primary caregiver first, seeking approval and validation at home, it eats into the bandwidth I need to conserve to give my best to my venture. When the environment at home is one of encouragement, and one that nurtures and enables, and meets the basic human needs to live, to learn, to feel valued and significant, we do more than just survive — we thrive. We soar higher than expected.”
Even now, she says that she does not seek work/life balance in conventional terms. She can work out of anywhere, and at times of her choosing. Her work gives her as much pleasure as leisure. And she might tuck in a film and lunch into a weekday, if she so chooses. For her, life and work are integrated.
Empowering Other Women
What really heartens her now is to help forge the economic independence of women, including women in rural areas or in hill and forest communities. As Shilpa puts it: “Maya Angelou said this and my father lived his life by this principle as well: ‘When you have, give, when you know, teach, when you learn, share.’ My father may not have known the quote, but he lived by this principle. Today, I spend at least 30% of my time helping people on their journeys.”
Summing Up in Sharma’s Words
“I can trace how the path I’ve taken has radicalized me . That I had to navigate a cultural mindset minefield made me stronger. I had to work harder at everything.
We always have a choice. Whether to react or not, is a choice. Silence can be agency.”
I’ve lived by these principles for myself:
- Willing to be true to myself and be who I want to be.
- Willing to stand alone if I have to, be bold about who I am.
- “What does it mean to fail well, to fail better?” (Ocean Vuong)
- Make myself redundant in my current role so I can move on to the next interesting opportunity for the business, which I can only do if I’ve groomed a second line to step into my shoes, seamlessly. In many ways, where I end up is directly an outcome of the redundancy I created for myself.
- Some of our lost momentum might come from surrounding ourselves with the kind of people who’ve sucked life out of us.
- If you walk with the wise, you grow wise.
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