I am a Koovs girl. It’s my favourite shopping site and my wardrobe is crammed with their clothes, meticulously picked off their app, a pre-sleep ritual. My mom has, as a result, often supplied me with an array of ‘no more Koovs cash-on-delivery’ ultimatums. 

So when I was assigned a trip to their London headquarters (yay!), I had to ring her up first. I packed my tangerine suitcase with Koovs-purchased #OOTD moodboards I’d drawn up for the trip. 

The Koovs office is in Aldywch House, smack in the middle of the hip theatres and restaurants in London — an office brimming with clothes, accessories, colours. Stepping into their second-floor workspace, I spot Mary Turner, the Koovs CEO, hanging around, wearing a skater dress and a warm smile. We settle down for a chat... 

Who is Koovs.com for? 

Mary: Our target audience is simple — the style-conscious young people who don’t break norms but don’t conform much either. I know there’ll always be that girl and boy who wants to be slightly different, like include pop art in their ethnic wear. That’s the psyche we’re tapping into. 

You’re a fashion label based in London and selling only in India.  What’s the logic behind choosing India and limiting your market? 

It’s about the absolute desire to bring real fashion forward to India. I observe that fashion in India isn’t new fashion. Many of the big Western brands in India distribute in the UK, Europe and America first and then bring a sub-set of the range to India. I don’t think that’s service to the style-conscious youth of India who are no different from the youth in London, Milan, New York, Paris. They’ve got a phone and they know what’s happening in the rest of the world. Why should they get last season’s fashion? We want fashion to happen in India today. And we understand what is affordable in India, which is why we’re made in India. 

But how does a design studio based out of London correctly gauge the nuances of personal Indian style? Like the body type? 

That’s where the dual team helps. The designers here identify the design and what’s latest, but we manufacture and fit in India. So when those samples come through, we are actually using Indian body shapes to fit. We’ve got a team of 25 here and 150 in India, so all the production, sourcing and fit team are based in India. We’ve got, I think, the best of both worlds. 

What excites you about the Indian market? 

Its growth rate. E-commerce is growing at 55 per cent there but within that, online fashion is growing at 75 per cent. And Koovs.com has outperformed every market benchmark with a growth of 115 per cent. So, for me, that’s a real validity of not just the India e-commerce market but what we are doing within it. 

What is Koovs.com getting right? 

Two things. First, our absolute laser focus on our target audience — style-conscious 18- to 28-year-olds. Second, we provide them with unique and exclusive designs from the London studio. So the combination of the beautiful and exciting market that is growing organically combined with our unique customer proposition and our laser focus on our target audience is what I believe is making us win this target market. 

The Koovs tagline says ‘step into’... how would you decode it?

It’s an invitation to step into dreams. It touches a core for me because I was brought up in a little village in Malaysia. There was no one in my family who’d ever travelled abroad but we went to English-medium schools, read Enid Blyton and conjured up images of strawberries and chocolates and running through fields. And there was a desire to live that dream. Koovs allows you to step into that dream because you could be walking down the pavements of London, New York, Paris, LA with your style. Our team has travelled for you, to all these places, has looked at what is happening on the streets, put it in the design and is bringing the world to you. So if you can’t go and experience the world, we’ll bring it to you! 

A peek into the Koovs office

Boss’s den: No fancy furniture or pricey painting here, Koovs CEO Mary Turner’s office looks like a walk-in closet. Clothes are hung along the walls with plenty of natural light streaming for a closer inspection of the shades. It’s a busy room with comfy seats, and no special one for the boss. 

Wall of books: The main meeting rooms tell a different story. One of the rooms has shelves stashed with Penguin paperbacks, while another has green hardback books. “We got them from a place where one can, literally, buy books by the yard,” revealed Mary. Our takeaway: stack up your books all right but play with colours and do it in style!

Work is play: Workstations are more like play stations. Expect a bunch of funky accessories strewn around the desktops, new season denims hanging from the chairs. And going by their Instagram posts, sometimes a Koovs girl tries on a pair of shoes and does a catwalk of sorts. #SoCool

Moodboards: Pop art over stuffy portraits on the walls aside, there are design and style prediction moodboards all around the office. It was, perhaps, this fun element that birthed a collaboration with British illustrator Hattie Stewart (above). 

How fashion happens at Koovs: “The idea of Koovs is to deliver affordable fashion,” says Robert Bready, chief creative officer, Koovs. When the design team spotted an Instagram picture of model Gigi Hadid wearing a choker top, the designers turned it into a white dress, that’s a part of the current collection. “Manufacturing in India helps make our styles affordable. Plus, our designs are all readied eight-nine months ahead of time and we make more designs than we need for that edit. Because sometimes a finished product doesn’t come out good. But we keep the rejected product too, you never know when it might become fashionable!” says Robert. 

Know your hashtags:

What we like about Koovs.com: The fact that it has the feel of an online magazine. “We’re not just an online shop, we give an experience around shopping which is primarily done via content,” says Robert Bready. So there’s plenty of content to flip through — from style takeaways to dedicated trend features narrated via pictures.

• #KoovsXYou: A social media upload of your picture wearing a Koovs buy, with this hashtag, gets you featured on their website or Insta page. Insta-fame! 
• #KoovsPooch: Peruse the Koovs Instagram for doggie pictures. t2 cuddled up in-house poochie Barney (above), a 13-year-old Shih Tzu. 
• #KoovsLondonDiaries: “This hashtag journals young Indians telling their London story — like the one picking up food at Pod who chances upon an interesting style takeaway instead. I want people to see the real London, not the glossy ones in movies and postcards,” says Mary.