Gayathri RadhaKrishnan

I come from a place in South India which is a textile hub. When I just step out of my house, it's all the sound of weaving and printing and dyeing, like hand block prints, all kinds of textiles, the smell of dye. That was always in the time when I grew up, so that was my passion. As a child, I used to paint and do a lot of pottery, terracotta, art, embroidery, and all that. I was more into music, I learned music as a child, I used to sing. Everything that surrounded me was so much happiness in color, textile, fashion, everything. That was in my grassroots when I grew up, and probably that chose me, and I did not choose this. I initially joined medical school to become a doctor, my ambition was to become a pediatric neurologist because I came from a family of doctors and grew up in a village near a medical college. I did one year of medical school, but I didn't have a passion or I was not happy with what I was doing, so I dropped out and went to fashion school. I'm a people's person. I connect to the grassroots of how a product is made. I've traveled the entire world and I love to connect with people at the core, on the floor, who make the products. I am myself an immigrant to this country, and this is a land of opportunities. Being a brown-skinned girl in the fashion industry is not easy, where there's a lot of stereotypes. My background has not been in stereotype brands like Coach or Michael Kors or Ralph Lauren. I come from family-owned businesses and startups. I have grown startups from seed funding to Series B. I had pioneered in exploring the market from big boxes to retail to department stores, so my knowledge is widespread.