Six years into its launch, HUEMN has dramatically evolved and currently stands on solid ground. After initial years spent shaping a DNA and understanding their customer, co-founders Shyma Shetty and Pranav Misra are focused on producing high quality garments supported by impactful visual dialogue that continues to provoke. Retailed in India and abroad, HUEMN’s expansive offering includes ready-to-wear and a niche in the eveningwear market. 

The beginning:

Shyma: I grew up in Bangalore in the ’90s. My dad, an industrialist and self made man, often told my brother and me stories of how he grew up in the village and came to the big city to become an entrepreneur. Like watching reruns of my favourite movie, I would ask him to repeat instances and anecdotes from his life as dinner table entertainment. One of his businesses was an export house which I thought I would join after studying fashion. I always thought I had very rebellious style. Through my four years at NIFT, I often wondered how amazing it must feel to create a fledging business of my own and watch it grow.

Moving to Delhi to work in fashion was one of the hardest decisions of my life because I had led such a sheltered childhood. My parents were very supportive and they knew that my classmate Pranav and I had often talked about starting our own label. I worked with the label Dozakh in Delhi for almost a year and became more confident of my sensibilities. Still, I kept putting off starting the business. I am a meticulous planner and wanted to wait till I had all the paperwork, business associates, five year plan, finances and a million other things in the palm of my hand.

One day, Pranav sat me down and said, “Listen, it’s now or never. Stop waiting and let’s jump. We have nothing to lose.” And that’s how HUEMN was born. When I look back now and connect the dots, it was definitely meant to be. – Shyma

Above: HUEMN Fall 2017 campaign | Image: Aman Makkar 

Pranav: My middle class upbringing in Lucknow has been the most beautiful experience of my life. It gave me a friend in my father – a government servant by profession, and a guide in my mother – the leader of the pack! My father gave me plenty of creative freedom; he encouraged me to make hobbies my profession. I loved writing poetry, watching the news, singing, solving mathematic problems. I wasn’t much of an athlete and definitely more inclined towards culture though I had no knowledge of or interest in design. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to be an entertainer: people excite me, their excitement towards me excites me more, and that has been a driving force in my journey so far. I don’t mean stand up comedy, but bringing a smile to people’s faces when I shared my poetry or sang. I’m much more honest when I write, for me it is an opportunity to connect.

I joined NIFT Bangalore in 2005 to study fashion and apparel because I did not want to be an engineer, a common trend then in Lucknow. Joining NIFT changed everything – my vision, my visualization, my life. Before that, I hadn’t moved out of my city or home so getting into college really opened things up for me. I started to notice beauty in small things, especially coming from Lucknow where at the time there was absolutely no enthusiasm for fashion.

I had zero capability to begin with: I don’t count myself as someone born with talent. What I know now is through effort and what I learned in college. It was a hunger for learning and experience more than anything. You have to be hungry all the time. Talent, money and connections help but nothing is more powerful than hunger. – Pranav

Above: HUEMN Fall 2017 campaign | Image: Aman Makkar 

It was at NIFT that I met Shyma, and we had similar dreams, passion and vision. After graduating in 2009, we both began working with industry professionals, she at Dozakh and me with Abhishek Gupta and Nandita Basu’s label Fightercock. I wanted to move away from what was happening in the industry and contribute in my own way. It was important to start on my own and finding a partner in Shyma was a huge plus. I can’t imagine HUEMN without her. 

Six years in:

Pranav: I wouldn’t say it’s say changed, but it’s definitely evolved. Our DNA remains the same. Design education in India is substandard and there is a vacuum when it comes to education. Our initial 2-3 years were spent learning about the brand and customer, adding layers every year. Effort now goes into evolving quality and production. With each collection we want to create a better product, one that will last at least 10 years as a wardrobe staple.

Above: HUEMN A/W 2014  | Image: Lakme Fashion Week

There was no concept when we began, to be honest. The idea was to take something from society and give it back. That’s why we chose the name HUEMN – it’s a play on the word ‘human’ that incorporates ‘hue’ which implies the notion of colour. Our idea at first was to work with communities in south India but with such a small business, and at that level, it wasn’t feasible. We had to change our vision and method of working completely.

While working with the domestic market, we gradually began to understand its needs which drove us to try new things. India loves to celebrate, the market here is happy and colourful. We’ve definitely incorporated an element of celebration in our clothing. We try to merge our design sensibility with that of the domestic market and it results in constant product development. With each collection, we move and shift drastically away from what we’ve tried in the past. That said, there has to be cohesion within our collections globally. For example, you wouldn’t necessarily find a fleece or leather jacket in stores where we retail in India (that you would see at our points of sale in New York, San Francisco and London)  but you’ll find something that’s along the same sensibility and aesthetic.

Above: HUEMN Fall 2017 | Image: Aman Makkar 

HUEMN is sophisticated, easy wear clothing for the self-assured. But HUEMN is also about relevance. Your look has to be fresh and relevant. We are creatures of change, and fashion has to be exciting or it has lost its purpose. But it should also be a seamless addition to your wardrobe. And it should be effortless! So that is what HUEMN is. Effortless, exciting and ahead of its time. – Shyma

The importance of provocation:

Pranav: It’s not black and white when it comes to the final presentation and part of our creation process. There are a lot of grey areas within our concepts and inspiration and the design process is very organic. I do not put them on paper. It begins on the form, there is a lot of tweaking and fighting for it until we feel good about the product. With each collection, we want to convey product in the right way. That’s most important. No matter how cool a brand is or how strong their social media, it comes down to the quality of the brand. 

Social relationships:

Pranav: Shyma, HUEMN and I are three individual brands, interconnected but different. HUEMN is a product of Shyma and Pranav, and Shyma and Pranav are a product of HUEMN in a way. My account has a lot of my writing, more so recently. Shyma’s is more personal and has a lot of her social circle while HUEMN is more focused. It communicates our brand language and is socially impactful through visual dialogue. It is focused on youth, people interested in art and who have strong individuality.

Above: HUEMN Project Edition 3 at Lakme Fashion Week | Image: Elvis D’Silva

Industry learnings:

Pranav: More than learnings, I would call it a need to sustain. We had no financial support but there was a drive to make this happen. There was no other way I guess. If your product is not selling and the market is not investing, then your product needs to change. Otherwise you will have to shut shop. We would design different lines depending on the retailer, and at that point, whether we liked our designs or not was secondary. It was a difficult time but until we got comfortable, it was the need of the hour. Only when we were comfortable did HUEMN come into the picture. Sacrificing the brand for the sake of commercial viability was never an option, and so these lines were not under the HUEMN name.

There are a lot of things that are not perfectly placed to be an entrepreneur in the fashion industry in India. First of all, my education in fashion did not stress upon the little things I wish they had taught me along with big things like how to cut fabric. I wish I had learned the legalities of the garment trade, a bit of accounts and branding strategy that I have had to learn the hard way over the last few years. There is also very little financial assistance in this field. The investment required versus the returns you make in the beginning – trying to cope with unreasonable payment terms – make the first year or so quite a hard phase to get past. – Shyma

Above: HUEMN Project Edition 3 at Lakme Fashion Week | Image: Elvis D’Silva

Seeing eye to eye:

Pranav: I think the company could run without me, but not without Shyma. She handles most things. Having a partner is challenging: you need to be cooperative, and there are times when you don’t understand what the other is trying to say. We develop our design sensibility together, there are certain rules we stick by. We have trained ourselves to work together and see eye to eye. I spend my time exploring ideas, she manages them beautifully, and the company runs. 

Shyma: Pranav and I have very different personalities and working styles. I like to call him the artistic one, I’m more the editor. He can stare at the wall for a week and come up with something exquisite. I need to be constantly doing something – making 500 different things to come up with something that’s poetry. I like to make sense out of chaos and if I have to delegate, I find it very hard to sleep at night. There is a certain level of trust and respect we have for each other’s way of working and we leave each other alone. Everything that happens at HUEMN goes through both of us before it happens. But mostly before that, we do our own thing. There’s also so much to do now that we take on several different projects and only consult each other when necessary. We have a very small team: it’s just the workforce, us and an intern or two sometimes.

A collaborative fit:

Shyma: We’ve done Lakme Fashion Week for many seasons now and collaborated with brands like Puma, Adidas and Tanishq. My favourite collaborations are definitely the ones with young stylists and fashion publications. We’ve done some cool editorials and video content with a few of our favourite bloggers and a couple of lifestyle brands. 

Above: HUEMN Fall 2017 campaign | Image: Aman Makkar 

I appear in campaigns for other designers and brands because I honestly just like being in front of the camera. I do it for fun – it’s a nice break from the daily routine of working all day. Like a holiday! It’s also interesting to see how other people conceptualize, the exchange of ideas, I don’t think of it as a branding exercise. I don’t know if it helps them or me, but I hope it helps somebody. – Pranav 

Why Lakme:

Shyma: Lakme gave us our first show in Spring-Summer 2012 when we had just about started. That generated interest in our brand and brought us many clients who have been buying from us since. They also have super PR. IMG has an amazing team we love working with. It’s been many seasons now. Why?! Why not?! 

Retail challenges: 

Pranav: The biggest challenge has been to stand our ground. There is lack of understanding in ready-to-wear retail mainly. The responsibility of educating the customer isn’t done by the retailers. There is limited demand and it’s hard to make them understand why the product costs that much. We retail through 15 major stores in India. Our evening wear section is booming. We are constantly growing and that is where the revenue comes from. For ready-to-wear, it is difficult to find a store that does justice to the category. With evening wear we have learnt to understand Indian colours, fall and shape and it’s been doing well for us. 

Above: HUEMN Fall 2017 campaign | Image: Aman Makkar 

We stock ready-to-wear across 4-5 stores around the world. The working method of businesses and transparency is great. Operating within an international supply chain is a pleasure. In India, there are a lot of retailers talking about sustainability in a big way without offering policies to sustain their designers. Very few stores have strong policies for designers in India.  – Pranav

Work history: 

Shyma:

HUEMN, CO-Founder, New Delhi, August 2010 – present

Studio 7′ (HUEMN’s parent company), Founder/Partner, New Delhi, August 2010 – present

Dozakh, Designer, New Delhi, August 2009 – May 2010 

Pranav:

HUEMN, CO-Founder, New Delhi, August 2010 – present

Studio 7′ (HUEMN’s parent company), Founder/Partner, New Delhi, August 2010 – present

Designer, Fightercock and Nandita Basu, Noida, 2009 – 2010