Meet Veena Ashiya, Founder and Chief Energy Officer of Monrow Shoes, a homegrown conscious women’s footwear label dedicated to the millennial savvy
at heart incepted in 2016.
A style savant turned fashion entrepreneur, Veena Ashiya is a passionate shoemaker and the founder of Monrow shoes, a homegrown brand that pledges to deliver style and comfort with their wide range of footwear that compliments every #OOTD or #OOTN.
From breezy flats, cushy sneakers, kitten heels, to enviably beautiful pumps, block heels, wedges and stilettos, each makes a sustainable statement style. An ardent believer and advocate of conscious fashion, the brand champions the vegan and cruelty-free processes in its approach.
In candid conversation with the woman behind the reigning brand, PEAKLIFE discovers with Veena the brand’s philosophy, her love for shoemaking, and her sustainable visions for the industry.
1. Starting off, how did your passion for shoemaking bloom in the first place?
Being born and brought up in a family that comes from an ancestral comprehension of the business, the oldest memory I have is of when I was just 7 years old. One fine day my school teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, to which very confidently I replied “I want to become a businesswoman and have a footwear empire of my own”. This passion has always remained an object of joy that enables me to feel comfortable and is the driving force in my life.
2. Tell us a bit about Monrow Shoes. How did the concept come about?
At the start of my professional journey, I moved to New York and was working for the brand Versace. The hustle and bustle of the city always required a lot of walking around. During that time I used to carry an extra pair of shoes along with me. The footwear I wore for short distances were fancy and the ones that I actually wore for functionality purposes would lack in the style factor. Somewhere down the line, I started resenting this shoes switching routine at the subway station and this toss- up between style and comfort transcended into a business idea. After I moved back to India, I realised that Indian women had evolved but the Indian homegrown brands were yet to catch up to the new-gen outlook! That is when I started forming the outline for Monrow Shoes. Incepted out of pure love for shoes at a very young age, we learnt a lot from our journey leading up to an approach that would eventually result in a sustainable business model.
3. What are some challenges you’ve had to face on the daily?
As a captain of a growing brand with a VC fund backing, it feels like driving a car with maximum fuel capacity. You have the power to push it to its limits and take it to a whole new level. Our challenges are currently in a sweet spot of growth as well as enjoying the journey and since then it is growing pains. I would happily endure it.
One more big challenge that we are lately facing is that our brand is one of the most copied footwear brands in India. This challenge coming from a barely four-year-old brand is insane. I feel in our country creativity is not produced, people do not invest in the pleasure of creativity while at Monrow we invest in creativity. All thanks to the digital age, this imitation gets noticed by consumers very quickly.
4. What would you say is the USP of the brand?
The USP of our brand is to bring the science of comfort along with magnificence of style. We are trying to build the combination of fashion with function, and at a very deeper level the USP is actually the social revolution that we believe is to be ‘Bold and Comfortable’, which means each one of us has that innate ability to be comfortable in our own flaws, quirks and authenticity but only a few of us own that very well. At Monrow we solely believe in this philosophy of being Boldly Comfortable!
5. As a homegrown, sustainable shoe brand, how essential is being eco-friendly for you?
Earth to us has been like a mother! We realise Earth has been a very giving and caring mother we might have taken her for granted. For me, the love for the planet exists at a very fundamental level and hence at Monrow we have always strived to be vegan. Our packaging constantly has been sustainable, and cruelty free. We also plan to set up an innovation lab that works around utilising indigenios fibres that are available in India to come up with substitutes to the material that we are currently using; truly taking gifts given to us by our mother Earth and converting them into shoes.
6. Do you think the shoewear industry is far behind the sustainable norm?
Yes, the fashion industry is one of the second largest waste producers in the world and the footwear industry is also a subset of it. Fast fashion is killing the whole ecosystem at a faster pace. Having said that, we also believe that there is a shift in the approach by the brands towards their respective ideology and choices. In the footwear and fashion market, we are witnessing a sustainability boom.
7. What are some trends you see emerging in the show industry for the near future?
In the post-pandemic era we can see that comfortable/ lounge leisure/ home leisure continues to be a trend and a theme for everyone. The fad will stay there for a while as we are surviving through some testing times and sustainable fashion is something which is here to stay for long.
8. How have you been sustaining through the pandemic?
We, being a brand who believes in the ideology of keeping yourself up and taking extra care of your mental health, we are always looking out for the well-being of our staff members. For us, getting into the comfort zone is the mantra to live life to the fullest and that is what we resonate through our content as well for our audience. Our whole focus has shifted from being a selling unit to being more careful about the end-users happiness and satisfaction. We have initiated things like MOJ- Moment of joy which is about how the packaging of our boxes should be. The package should not just have the product inside instead it should also reflect the emotions it comes with. To add on, we conduct a monthly well-care session and a lot of fun activities for our team members. We are being more creative and thoughtful day by day.
9. Your success mantra?
Our success mantra is to celebrate each and every small hurray that comes our way. The bandwidth need not be very high but the happiness you get by achieving small successes is what makes you keep going forward in life. As an emotion, we tend to put our whole energy on reaching or pulling off bigger milestones but it’s all about the process, there’s no short-cut for that.
10. Lastly, any advice for budding aspirants?
My personal advice to the budding aspirants is that entrepreneurship might look glamorous from the outside but from inside it is an intense journey not just from a business building perspective but also personally. So only if you are extremely passionate and determined, I would say dive right in.
Discover Monrow Shoes here: https://www.monrow.in/.
