Fashion or comfort? The question bothers one, irrespective of their fashion forwardness. From clothes to jewellery, handbags, briefcases, scarves, stoles and footwear, inclining towards comfort is something that everyone wants.
Similar are the instincts of 25-year-old Ronnie Khanna, a Delhi-based shoe maverick.
A graduate with honours in International Business from the London University, Khanna belongs to a family which has been manufacturing leather shoes for more than two decades. Having returned from London in 2011, he joined the family business and continued with it for two years.
“I am a shoe fanatic. Having grown up with and around shoes all my life, I wanted to explore my own options on the basis of my own experience,” says Khanna who launched his footwear brand Saint G around 2012.
Realising the lack of domestic market with his family business, Khanna decided to come up with a brand which speaks for itself, on the basis of its quality and design.
“I stayed and studied in London for a considerable amount of time and realised that in India people make choices on the basis of the brand and not the quality of the shoe. With my brand, I want to make the customers understand that there is more to footwear than the brand name.”
While keeping in consideration that importance of establishing the brand for surviving in the competitive market, Khanna assures that his product alone is the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) of the brand.“In future, when my label will be more established, I want people to locate my product, instead of my brand,” adds Khanna, who also focuses on providing a good customer experience.
With his first store in the up-market Hauz Khas Village, which is a popular commercial party place in the city, Khanna reports to have fewer footfall but 100 per cent customer satisfaction.
“I haven’t received many complaints from customers as of now. A lot of my clientele includes expats who appreciate my product irrespective of the brand name,” Khanna
tells Metrolife.
Speaking of the collection at Saint G, one can find a variety of European influenced styles and designs, where Khanna artistically plays with the sole of each of them. From a hard leather sole to a softer rubber sole and imported from Italy — short-heel sole, he caters to varied needs of the customer, that range between the realms of comfort and fashion.
“With the changing trends in people’s choices, I have a lot of customers who ask me for comfortable footwear, one which can be worn with ease and are user-friendly. Thus, we do a lot of variants with heels so that there is something for everyone,” he ends.
