While we can't substantiate this claim, we can say for sure that they're the only one in the Pavilion group of malls and just by way of visibility, we haven't seen any other major store like this.
To find out more about the brand and its achievements we spoke to Yesshminni Ravin and Mir Momin who are behind ‘Yeshan Sarees’ that have just opened their flagship physical store in Pavilion Bukit Jalil with a collection of Indian garments, sarees, and even a couture line for wedding attire called ‘Proudly’.
Ask any Malaysian Indian and they’ll tell you that it is usually probably more worthwhile to make a trip to India to shop for weddings. There are way more options to choose from in the country and prices are generally two to three times more in Malaysia compared to India.
In fact, we spoke to a bride-to-be that said many people take the flight over just to buy clothes and accessories for their big day although nowadays it has become easier to find local boutiques in locations such as Brickfields and Klang that source directly from India.
Yessh Ravin, 26, first had the vision of bringing relevance to Indian ethnic fashion and catering it to wider audiences in Malaysia back in 2015. Although Indian textiles and fashion have gained attention internationally such as through the ‘Fabric of India’ exhibition at the prominent Victoria and Albert Museum over in London back in 2015, it still lays largely forgotten in the fashion industry here in Malaysia.
Yessh shared, “Yeshan Sarees was born to make that change and make people witness the lavish heritage of India through its fabrics.” After years of research and development, Yessh joined hands with her best friend, Mir Momin, 25 despite their backgrounds studying Medical Bio-Technology and Computer Science, respectively, and their operations kicked off in 2018.
With a firm belief in the importance of supplying authentic goods to their clientele, they personally visited different villages in India to source for fabrics and suppliers. From the get go, they believed in making Yeshan Sarees known for their quality. They started off with sourcing for good quality fabrics but have expanded to designing and developing fabrics and attires from all from scratch.
Yessh said, “Meeting numerous weavers, villagers, and artisans during their journey to India gave us a huge plethora of resources.” This year, they have added a subsidiary Proudly to their belt that customizes one-of-a-kind pieces to cater to the needs and specification of each customers.
The brand has built a cult following through its website and a healthy number of followers on social media. The quick rise of their brand has been remarkable; in the first year, they told us they weer getting sales in the mid-six figures, and it has been consistently growing since then.
The pandemic proved to be a blessing in disguise for the brand, however it wouldn't come with some hiccups at the beginning.
Due to the ban on imports, the business was stagnant for six months which drained their accounts to the last ringgit. Once they were able to resume imports, they decided to go all in. In 2020 for the festive season of Deepavali, they managed to sell over 800 items in a month which allowed them to reach six figures in their monthly revenue.
In the same year, the brand moved to a website-based e-commerce store with over a thousand designs available to order anytime and Yessh claims, “We were the only one doing it on a website-based e-commerce model then.”
The next year, their website went global and started delivering to more than 35 countries including being the supplier for an Indian fashion brand in the USA. After taking the e-commerce Indian fashion industry by storm, their revenue saw a meteoric rise that reached seven figures, which gave them the confidence they needed to step out and set up a physical store at Pavilion Bukit Jalil.
After months of negotiations with the malls to convince them that they weren’t “just any saree seller”, they managed to realise their dream of establishing a retail presence, making them the first ever Malaysian Indian brand to do so (again, that's what they tell us. We don't have a directory of all shops known in Malaysia and their owners, do let us know if we're wrong here).
Although Yeshan Sarees’ rise has been swift, it hasn’t been easy. The duo have poured their heart and soul into the brand, along with countless hours of hard work. They said, “Every single thing that exists and is incorporated into our business has been learnt and mastered by us. We haven’t hired a person for a single job to date.”
They had certain qualms about hiring outsiders such as losing their reputation if an employee were to behave inappropriately towards a client and that no one would take as many pains as they did to establish and maintain the business that they considered to be as precious as their own child.
This was no easy feat. It includes creating the website, photographing, digital marketing, modelling, accounting, customer support and everything else that is required from an e-commerce company that maintains over one thousand SKUs encompasses, on top of adding on five new designs every single day.
They shared the reason why Yeshan Sarees is doing so well, “When people see our job, they think it’s easy. They believe anyone can do it, but when it comes to doing it, few can hold on to it. We have always known what we wanted, and we never gave up… that is the reason for our success. We’ve often been asked, ‘Yeshan Sarees is okay, but what is your future plan? What if you won’t be successful with this?’ Now we have an answer, we guess we’ll never know.”
Speaking on the lack of Malaysian Indian entrepreneurs in the fashion space, they commented that other brands lack the inspiration to do something on a higher level and hope to set the benchmark for others: “There are amazingly talented and worthy brands in the Malaysian Indian Fashion industry and surely everything needs a start. Hopefully, the idea will take on and more local brands will make wiser and stronger decisions and emboss their names in the respective industries.”
It's amazing how much the two have accomplished in just a few years –– and they’re just getting started.
Follow them on Instagram @yeshansarees and at @proudly_2022 or visit their websites Yeshan Sarees and Proudly.