“Clothes mean nothing until someone lives in them”- Marc Jacobs
So does my story. It’s not so long ago I never thought what style and fashion can bring about. How it can differentiate you from the crowd, how it can define you, until recently, when I had some exposure to the world. What matters in the end is that what message you want to deliver, what you want to showcase to someone whom you are meeting for the first time.
I don’t want to make it chaotic, so let us start from the beginning. In second year of my college, I joined a club, which conducts events regarding art and photography. The club was a closed knit kind so everyone had to do everything, from sponsorship search to art-work, promotional activity to marketing. So I was too asked to do the work of finding sponsors for our events. It was first day experience so, even though, I didn’t put much thought in dressing up. I thought it is the content that matters, the “main body of the letter”. I went to one of the prospective sponsor on day 1. I asked one the employees about his whereabouts. He told me that the sponsor was in some meeting. I made myself comfortable hearing the update on the couch opposite to his office. It took almost an hour for me to enter in his cabin for pitching my idea. The event that I was asking sponsorship for could have been a major branding stage as we were trying to make a world record. But as it is said, packaging does matter. He didn’t give me the chance to complete my case and asked me to walk off. For a nerd person that I was, it was shattering. To be unable to even complete the presentation, and then been asked to walk away, it breaks one’s confidence. Similar incidents happened on various occasions, from professional point of view to personal level. It took me some time to understand that what people perceive at first puts you in a place from where you need to pitch your point and perception are made when they first see you, and what they see first is how you present yourself.
Uniforms speak a lot. You won’t ask a person dressed as a fireman whether he/she is a fireman or not. It comes as an instinct, basically a logical mistake and an assumption. This was a place I was missing my point. The dress which I should be wearing, it should project a message of what I want to achieve. But as always, students don’t have that margin, that extra budget for going to high end clothes. You remain in under-grade, living on what your folks lend you in start of the month, and many times, away from your homes. The expenditure remains high and one is unable to spare some money for his/her clothing. This is where Aditya Birla Group comes in.
The target segment which the ABG hits with Pantaloons and Peter England is the one which wants a high-end product in affordable range all year round. It opens up a window foe middle class section of the society to touch the luxury of high class segment. The discount schemes with wide range of apparels to choose from provide inclusivity and a sense of luxury. This is supplemented by stores where everything is placed in a single mart with ease in a comfortable environment.
This also came to me as a section from where I can look into the image that I was sending to the world, what I stand for and what I am. ABG gave me a chance to come out of a cocoon in a manner in which I would not be judged or socially jeered upon. It helped me to take charge, feel confident about and a jump boost to start upon.
Thanks ABG