No enterprise can be built without the help of so many people who play small but significant, or often substantial roles in getting things off the ground. Or without intense hard work, as I was to find out. Pakke Dhaage started when I, a dentist, lost my job during covid - and with my family dumped everything in our car and made a 1400 km journey back to Jaipur - in the middle of the lockdown. The only stops we could manage being by the roadside to feed my son, not willing to risk any roadside Dhabas which were still operating for transporters. Little did I know this was to be my lifestyle for many months to come!
It was there, in Jaipur, my husband's hometown, that the idea of Pakke Dhaage was born. I was always passionate about clothing - our family has run a business for nearly 70 years in Lucknow - and was confident on my choice. I wanted to curate selective clothing, which would give our customers a choice of the absolute best - in style, colors and fabric, while keeping the costs as affordable as possible. Pakke Dhaage started off as a venture for Jaipuri Kurtis, but soon evolved into Chikankari.
Months of research followed, mostly walking and knocking on doors in the dinghy backstreets of Lucknow and nearby villages - places I, despite having lived in Lucknow for nearly 30 years, and having a clothing business, didn't know existed. Connecting with artists and listening to their stories helped us build our first portfolio. Every other weekend, my husband would drive 600 kilometers from Jaipur to Lucknow to drop me and my 1 year old son, and drive back - the fear of Covid still preventing us from traveling otherwise. I would spend the week running around in Lucknow with my son in tow, armed with N95 and bathed in sanitizer. And then the next weekend, my husband would do the trip all over again.
We started off with exhibitions in 2021 - La Colors in Hyderabad, Jhalak in Rajasthan and MP and many in Mumbai - still traveling by our car - loaded with stock - testing our customers' likes and dislikes, fabric preferences, style preferences and more. Spending 16 hour days trying to make a sale, winding up and then traveling on to the next exhibition and then ending the circuit with the drive back to Jaipur or Lucknow.
This post goes to all the people who helped make Pakke Dhaage. Friends who became our first customers, fierce supporters and reluctant critics. Random strangers in Lucknow who helped us knock on the right doors. My 65 year old father who walked many of those miles with me. Our courier partners, who took on a small business and have stayed with us. My employees, each one of whom, has a story far more interesting then mine. And my extended family who took on the burden of all the balls I was dropping! That's what made us.
The People of Pakke Dhaage.