Rati Bahadur, Gayatri Khosla, Yatra Collection, Social Enterprise, Fashion, The Story ExchangeYour Name: Rati Bahadur & Gayatri Khosla

Business Name: Yatra Collection, a fashion line featuring India-inspired apparel and accessories

Type of Business: Clothing & Accessories

Business Location: New York, New York, United States

Website www.yatracollection.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/yatracollections
Pinterest http://pinterest.com/yatrainc/pins/

Reason for starting
The Yatra Collection is more than an artistic line of India-inspired apparel and accessories. Yatra is a story. The story of long time friends who attended boarding school together in India, dreaming of one day merging their creative interests in fashion and design to create their own label. It’s a story of exclusive hand-craftsmanship and the beauty of India. It’s a respectful nod to the ancestral richness of India, complemented by modern flare and elegance. And it’s a story of empowerment. Yatra Collection evolved from a love for Indian handcraftmanship and the desire to blend the traditional with the modern.

How do you define success?
Success is each time a woman puts on a Yatra Collection design and feels beautiful and confident. Success is when the Yatra Collection designs are worn by women all over the U.S. and beyond; when an artisan lights up when we talk about how their skills are appreciated thousands of miles away; and, on a deeply personal note, success is when our children tell us they love what we do!

Biggest Success
Because Yatra Collection celebrates all the little successes, our biggest successes are many. However, to define one, we’d likely say the growth we’ve experienced in two short years.

What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it?
Time. We are both mothers. Juggling that incredibly important job with Yatra Collection, and the importance of promoting fashion with a social mission, is a challenge. We continue to address it each day.

Who is your most important role model?
Women. The women who don Yatra Collection. The Yatra woman is confident and doesn’t hold back from mixing styles together. She wears the clothes rather than allowing the clothes to wear her. She is feminine and likes to stand out without being ostentatious and embraces fashion as an important part of her life. You can see her beauty as much as you can feel it because it comes from the inside out.