HIDE DESIGN It’s love of leather, not business, that shapes Hidesign’s success story, says Dilip Kapur

I was born in New Delhi to a post- Partition refugee family. But my parents soon moved to Agra where my father set up a shoe factory and stores. Obviously the love for leather is genetic! We moved to Puducherry when I was six. The reason was the Auroville Ashram. My parents sold every asset — factory and stores — and donated the money to the ashram. I loved the ashram school. Its free schooling system allowed me to do what I liked and I think it gave me my defining characteristics: curiosity and search for individual growth and identity. The system was the philosophy of the Mother and a Frenchman called Pavitra, who have influenced me profoundly. The school also defined my sense of beauty: our notebooks had a motto etched on the cover, “There is great beauty in simplicity”. The clean lines of Hidesign come from there. The love for beauty must also be from my mother who loved to paint and was known as the finest embroiderer in the ashram. And I absolutely loved the sea. Swimming in the ocean and playing on the beach would be among my greatest pleasures in life! My first full-time job was when I was finishing my PhD in international affairs. Running out of scholarship money to complete my dissertation, I took on the first job that paid enough to take me through the nine months it took to finish. It was a job in a leather goods company where I learnt to hand-dye, cut and glue leather together and make a bag out of it. The intellectual in me loved working with my hands. But what was getting shaped was my lifetime affair with leather. When I returned to India, I kept making bags as a hobby, never realising that this would end up being the focus of my working life in a few years as it grew into what is now Hidesign. It started off with one artisan. We made one bag a day. The first bags I designed and made were gifted to my family. Through a friend of mine, a German man saw my creations and ordered 1,400 bags. I had just started this and had one cobbler working for me. After six months, I managed to supply just 200 bags. Around that time a friend who was staying at Auroville returned to Australia to work in a car factory. When he broke his back, he got $12,000 from his company. He came back, bought my bags, and sold them in Australia. He was quite successful and that was how we reached Australia. One of his cousins living in England saw my bags and was impressed. She started buying them for the UK market. Then, somebody who visited Auroville from California saw my bags and started selling them there. Interestingly, I didn’t see what I was doing as ‘business’ the first 10 years. I couldn’t even read my PnL accounts! We just enjoyed what we were doing and that’s pretty much how we operate even today. We never feel we are even close to having ‘achieved’ a goal. Being an entrepreneur is only one aspect of what I would want. I still teach in Auroville, I would still like to continue to learn (thoroughly enjoying learning how to draw right now), be involved in the community at Auroville and Puducherry (heritage especially). On the way there were several peaks and troughs. My lows have been more psychological. Twice I came close to giving up Hidesign. First time was in 1985, when it was going from becoming a hobby into a business. I didn’t want to become a businessman and even thought of giving up the hobby. Then again in 2000, just before I started selling in India. India was starting retail. I found it exciting to be in touch with the final person who was using my product. Since I have not studied business, my approach is more instinctive. I work on short-term goals and have learnt, over and over again, that being unique and innovative is the greatest strength. Think through problems and don’t just take the easy route. From the time when I designed our first handbag — Toscana — till date I play close attention to every aspect of the creative and operational process. Even with a strong design team it is tough to come up with a collection that is new and relevant every season. Hidesign’s future lies in becoming a self-confident brand with its own unique identity. One that learns to relate to people of different cultures and heritage across the world. My son Vikas Kapur has joined us, but I see the future of Hidesign as being in the hands of anyone who is committed to it and talented enough to drive it. There are a few that I have my eyes on within the organisation.

I Wish I Could Be

Who else would I like to be? I am quite comfortable in my skin. If I change the question to who I admire, I would say anyone who has successfully bettered lives through their innovative thinking. Could be a Nelson Mandela, Ho Chi Minh, Steve Jobs — the list of supermen is actually quite long. That’s comforting to note. (As told to Rohini Banerjee)