Our story · Kolkata · Since 2015
Made by us, for women like us.
Uptownie is a womenswear label from Kolkata, run by a mother and her two daughters. We design our clothes for the way Indian women actually live and dress, and we make every one of them ourselves, in our own factory in West Bengal.
01 · Where it began
A tailor, every Sunday.
Uptownie began long before it had a name. In 2003 there was no Zara or H&M in India, and the clothes we admired existed only in magazines. So every Sunday our mother would call the tailor home. We would arrive with pages torn from Elle and Vogue, and she would sit with him until those designs had been made for us, in our size and within our means.
She had a red one-shoulder dress stitched for an eighteenth birthday. It cost ₹1,000, and fifteen years later it still fits. We did not know it then, but that dress contained everything this company would later stand for: a design worth wanting, a fit made for the woman wearing it, and a price that respected her.
02 · The people
Three women, one company.
We make clothes that fit women, not the other way around.The rule we design by
03 · Who we design for
Designed for Indian women.
Most fashion sold in India was drawn for someone else: for a different body, a different climate and a different kind of day. We begin from the other end. We look at how Indian women live, travel and work, at the colours, prints and cuts they return to, and at the proportions that actually flatter them, and we design from there.
We also listen. Every review and every return is read by the team that makes the garment, and fits are corrected from one batch to the next. And we price each piece at what we would consider fair value ourselves, because a customer who feels she has been treated well is worth more to us than a single sale.
04 · How it is made
We do all of it ourselves.
Many labels you will come across online buy ready stock and attach their own name to it. We have never worked that way. Every stage of an Uptownie garment happens under our own roof, in India, and that is the reason we can stand behind it.
We are not here to cheat anyone. When something goes wrong there is no one else for us to blame, and nothing to stop us from putting it right.
05 · A promise
If you have never ordered from us before, we understand the hesitation. Order one piece. You may pay on delivery if you prefer, and if it is not right you have seven days to send it back. We would rather earn your trust slowly than ask you to take it on faith.
Priyanka, Shivani and our mother
