Designing careers

The story behind one of the top institutes in its field, Hamstech Institute of Fashion and Interior Design in Hyderabad, is one of ambition, passion and perseverance. But, at the heart of its success is a love story.

Talking about the founder and chairperson, Yogesh Kumar, founder and director of Hamstech, Ajitha Reddy explains, “Yogesh and I had a love marriage. He is a North Indian while I am South Indian, and we expected some resistance from our families. We fell in love when we were doing our B.Tech and had to make sure that we survived on our own, just in case we were thrown out of our houses!” Luckily, both the families were more than supportive, much to their surprise.

They were barely out of their teens when they started their first business, Study Circle of Postal Education (SCOPE). “We noticed a huge crowd on some days at our college, Osmania University, where people who had a gap of a few years after their 12th grade could write all the three years of exams for a Bachelor’s degree at once. We stepped in as education service providers, to liaison students from all over the country with the university. That was our first tryst with an educational institution,” recalls Ajitha.

Their entry into the fashion world happened because they understood that the youth of the country were leaning towards acquiring skills. “We were both passionate about education and wanted to work on something that would create livelihoods. We were already connected with a couple of universities and at one of them — SNDT in Mumbai, we found that many were choosing fashion designing. Realising its potential, we took the plunge,” says Ajitha.

The couple started their first center in Himayatnagar in 1996 with just over 15 students, but had a steady increase of enrollments of up to 40 per cent each year! “We had made some money from SCOPE, which helped us start our first institute. We got the curriculum from SNDT and hired someone who was teaching garment construction on a very small scale to teach fashion design. For interior designing, we got help from an architect,” says Ajitha.

Within just three years, they opened two more branches. “Yogesh is a very aggressive person, business wise. He had also invested in the stock market and gave me the confidence that we could open the Punjagutta and Secunderabad branches together,” adds Ajitha. Today, the couple has a total of six branches in the city.  

Their focus was to become system dependent rather than person dependent and along the way, the couple handled challenges with finesse, and turned hurdles into opportunities. Ajitha says, “Many students joined the course thinking it was all glamorous, but many were disappointed because it was a lot of hard work minus the glamour. To give the students a glimpse of the industry, we roped in Neeta Lulla, recipient of four national awards, to mentor them. Gradually, we tied up with more fashion and interior designers such as Wendell Rodricks, Anand Kabra, Shabnam Gupta, and others. We also started an annual fashion show to display the collection of the students, which would then go on sale at the end of their course.”

The fashion shows and the online store of Hamstech, The H Label, was a hit and the course benefitted not only students who were fresh out of school, but also housewives-turned-entrepreneurs.

Citing one such example, Ajitha says, “There was a lady named Shilpa Waghrey, who displayed her collections at our fashion show. She got invited to display it at the Miami University, and even got recognised by the first lady of Miami, who bought one of her designs! Her husband, who was drawing a five figure salary at an IT company, quit his job to get more involved with Shilpa and her work.”

She continues, “For us, growth happened at a time when we were not expecting it, and we had nobody to advice us. For value addition, Yogesh did an MBA from ISB this year, but the turning point was definitely when we expanded to five branches. Every time we thought of opening another branch, I would have doubts, but Yogesh encouraged me throughout and worked with me to accomplish the goal. The only negative thing about having your life partner as your business partner is that you never switch off from work. From the time we wake up till we go to bed, we can never escape work!” admits Ajitha, adding that Hamstech will soon expand their certificate course in photography to a diploma programme, for which they have tied up with the renowned photographer Avinash Gowarikar.