Stitching a niche

It’s a less-than-a year old baby of three young women, all mothers. Born in October 2016, Silver Stitches is a joint venture of Vanessa Gonsalves, Temea Costa and Lalita Braganza.

BHARATI PAWASKAR | JULY 17, 2017, 04:21 AM IST
Usually its women, kids and teenagers who throng their store in Margao to order their personalised items that range from baby diapers to frocks and T-shirts to pouches – with the names of their tiny tots embroidered on it. “Daddy’s little girl,” whispers a cute pink top while ‘I’m Mama’s boy’ shouts a bright blue T’shirt. “We love this concept,” smiles a new mother who is eager to get her little ones name printed on all her baby accessories. r“Silver Stitches is a young company whose focus is on personalisation and customisation. Our main area of expertise is embroidery but based on customer demands and needs we also do printed and other merchandise,” briefs one of the three partners, Temea, an architect and designer by profession. “My role in the team is mostly design and some amount of embroidery,” she points out. r“We have personalised products – from fabric to ceramic, wood and plastic - from T-shirts to towels, cake toppings to hangers, pouches to dresses and magnets to mugs,” says Vanessa, a BBA who takes care of the marketing side of the business. It may take a week to 10 days for embroidering the name or message on the fabric, bag or pouches while it takes 15-20 days to supply personalised cake toppers or magnets on order. The products vary and depending upon the type, a ready piece may cost you anything between Rs 50-5,000. Silver Stiches accepts corporate gifting and bulk orders too. rIt was Vanessa’s idea to offer something personalised to the customers that brought together the three entrepreneurs to work on this unique concept. On her trip to Europe, Vanessa came across a small shop by the side of a road that sold such personalised items. She was enamoured by the idea. On her return to Goa, she gave it a serious thought. “I did a lot of research before getting myself equipped with the required machinery and set-up,” discloses Vanessa.Lalita Braganza, an architect who handles work from North Goa, shares, “We three have divided the work among ourselves. I create the design and embroidery. Before being a part of Silver Stitches I used to get the embroideries done for my clients. By creating a design on computer I put it on the machine which copies it. I had good feedback from my clients for this. With their encouragement I began creating innovative, personalised designs for them. Everyone wants something special, something different and customised. Sometimes it’s a logo or a slogan or birthday message or just particular flowers. We, at Silver Stitches, are more than happy to see that their ideas are embroidered on our products. We have non-embroidery items too – like mugs, magnets, balcho, cake toppers and hangers.” rHow do the trio, who live in different places in Goa, manage to balance work and home? “I think first of all, it helps because we are a team of three. We can divide, and thus, each focus on a task without having to be a one-person-army. Apart from that, my father-in-law and husband always lend a hand when it comes to household chores and errands. I am really grateful for that,” says Temea who points out that Silver Stitches has chalked out ambitious plans for the future. Currently the number of orders booked until July 15 are 120. Their hands always remain full with orders, as there is no dearth of customers who adore personalised products. r “We hope to have an online presence soon. Very soon we will have our website. We are also looking at tapping corporate clients. Let me admit, we are very thankful to each client and vendor who has been part of our, so far, short journey. We’ve had some hiccups, but clients have been understanding and enabled us to improve and grow with feedback and ideas. We hope the support continues,” Temea expresses. rThe social media, internet, networking and word-of-mouth publicity have helped the trio reach a wider market. The pop-up bazaar trend that is becoming popular in Goa has also aided in making them known across Goa.
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