This Delhi-based brand is offering customers minimalist clothing

Hailing from the small town of Bikaner, childhood friends Nilesh Karnani and Ashish Baheti had grown up around business and trade. Their families were involved in traditional businesses like textile dyeing, bangle manufacturing, and trading.

The duo always wanted to build something of their own that would be new and different.

While doing their bachelor’s degree in commerce in Delhi and Bikaner, respectively, Nilesh and Ashish identified a number of problems with men’s everyday clothing. They observed that big brands claiming to provide comfortable clothing typically charge higher than what they generally offer in terms of fabric.

The duo also wanted to propagate the idea of minimalism through their product. Minimalism is a movement that advocates getting rid of unnecessary items and keeping only what is necessary. It entails having a limited number of outfits that are basic and versatile, and can be worn every day.

With these ideas in mind, they launched the direct-to-consumer men’s clothing brand Beyours in 2019. The Delhi-based homegrown minimalist fashion brand aims at providing comfortable clothing at the right pricing.

It aims to help customers declutter their wardrobes by offering products that are timeless. They create meaningful essentials—garments designed for all seasons and occasions, and those that one would not want to give up just to follow fashion trends.

Research-based foundation

Before launching the products, the co-founders conducted extensive market research on the issues faced by customers. The teams did field work and conducted surveys to learn about fabric and fit issues that the consumer faces.

Nilesh says, the fabric of sweatpants gets baggy and loose over time. And the everyday pants are made of polyester, which is not skin-friendly. They investigated these issues and looked for a better fabric.

The team decided to source yarns from distributors in Delhi, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad. They mixed different yarns, sampled them, and reworked the fabric until they achieved the desired quality. “No other brand offers the same fabric and fitting as we do,” claims Ashish. The brand uses high-quality cotton for its products. Elastane is also used for durability.

"We don’t have a machinery setup. We outsource everything,” Nilesh says. The fabric is cut in the company’s warehouse and there is an in-house design team. The products are made by manufacturers based in Noida, Faridabad, and Gurugram.

There are currently 18 people working in the internal teams, which comprise teams for designing, brand development, packaging and dispatching, operations, and marketing.

The products

Currently, Beyours offers only men’s apparel such as shirts, t-shirts, trousers, joggers, sweatpants, and summer shorts. The products are priced between Rs 1,199 and Rs 2,999.

Other than quality and fit, what makes Beyours different is the colours it offers. The classic shirt, which is one of its best-selling products, is available in German Grey, Iron Grey, Fair Pink, Mineral Blue, Pearl White, and others that are hard to find in traditional brands.

“Men no longer wear just black, white, and blue. We also wear baby pink. The colour theory is changing and brands are changing that. We are one such brand,” Nilesh says.

Another best-selling product of the brand is its ‘Softest T-shirt’. The founders claim there is no other t-shirt brand in the market that is so smooth on the skin. The company is also trying to make its products utility-based. For example, providing zippers in every category possible.

Beyours is seeing a majority of sales coming from South India. Its target market is the upper middle and upper class. “We make every effort to provide the best fabric in the price range,” Ashish says.

Milestones in the journey

The founders started the brand with a capital of Rs 50,000 and a limited inventory. To their surprise, the brand received a massive response in the first month itself, and most categories were sold out within a month and a half. They made sales of Rs 1 lakh in January 2019. They had to pause for two months to restock and they finally started selling again from April, 2019.

In FY20, Beyours made sales of Rs 65 lakh, followed by Rs 2.2 crore, and Rs 3.2 crore in FY21 and FY22, respectively. It made Rs 5.5 crore in sales for FY23, and expects the figure to rise to Rs 6.5 crore by the end of the fiscal year.

During its Diwali sale in 2022, the sales figure reached Rs 50 lakh within two days. The founders count it as a major achievement for the brand.

The company attributes the initial success of the brand to social media marketing. It has an in-house social media team that works to creatively showcase the products to customers, and uses Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube Ads to market its products. About 70% of the customers come through Instagram, and the brand mostly sells through its own website.

Talking about competitors, the founders say they do not directly compete with any brand because their fabric and colour are unique. Brands like ZARA, H&M, Souled Store, and Bewakoof, are a few brands that offer similar designs, they say.

Speaking of challenges, they say they have not faced any major challenges till now. The pandemic had little impact on them because they had a small team of four to five people at the time. Following the pandemic, competition increased as many D2C brands entered the market. However, the high quality of their products and social media marketing enabled them to differentiate and grow.

Plans ahead

The brand intends to expand its categories while adhering to its vision of creating a minimalist fashion brand. It intends to expand its product lines to include undergarments, wallets, belts, and perfumes.

Talking about opening physical outlets, Nilesh says they are looking into ways where fixed costs are low. The fixed costs for a store include rent, maintenance, utility bills, salaries, etc., which a person has to pay regardless of how much they sell.

The brand plans to enter the women’s segment, for which research is currently going on. It intends to launch 10 to 12 categories in this segment, with a focus on making the products well-fitting and utility-based.

Beyours’ sales target for the coming fiscal year is around Rs 15 crore.