Beautiful Bathukamma saris go global

Love for Telangana culture made four sisters from the State start 'Subba Fashions' to showcase the festive spirit to others

The popular adage ‘All fingers are not same’ holds true when talking about siblings who are like chalk and cheese. But Subba Sisters proved to be an exception. Despite being inclined towards different things in life, all four of them have one thing in common — their love for Telangana culture.

And it is this love that made the four women to think of working towards one common goal as well. Meet the Subba Sisters who have their own style of clothing which is attracting many in the market.

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“The journey into clothing business is completely new for us,” say the sisters who live in different States. “But our love towards Telangana culture made us work on this new concept called Telangana Bathukamma saris,” says Jyothi who works in the banking sector.

Though the sisters stay in a different cities they communicate in a WhatsApp group and discuss ideas. The fabric is taken care of by the elder sister Deepthi, marketing needs are looked after by Jyothi, designing and other works by Keerthi and Sruthi… that’s how the sisters divided the work and started the sari business online under the label ‘Subba Fashions’.

Deepthi, who stays in Pune, says, “I have moved to Pune 10 years ago and was missing all the celebrations which we used to have in our State. So, later, a few women gathered as a small community and started celebrating Bathukamma here. That’s when I thought of doing something different to showcase our culture to other States and decided to work on these concept Bathukamma saris.”

And the four sisters discussed the concept over the phone and started working on it. They started customising saris which are hand-painted, Kota cotton with embroidery and mirror work, and recently they started dresses in pure tussar to encourage weavers from the native place. They also began using social media to sell their products.

“A lot of people left this art because handwoven clothes are not profitable and half of the weaver families turned to other occupations which is the reason behind missing our roots and culture, and losing our art forms,” says Deepthi. The sisters used their maternal surname ‘Subba’ in their label as they “wanted to show our gratitude by dedicating the business to them”.

“We wanted to show Telangana culture globally which made us focus more on social media. Due to the pandemic, we got more customers as people started preferring online shopping now, which became another plus point for us,” concludes Deepthi who is balancing both office and business.

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