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Shivaan Seth grew up around India’s garment manufacturing industry, witnessing the high quality of clothing being produced in India for global markets. But when he returned from the US, he noticed a disconnect: while most Indian factories were capable of making world-class products, finding well-made, thoughtfully designed everyday clothing locally was still a big challenge.
This gap eventually led him to build ‘Better Basics’, a homegrown apparel brand made around quality fabrics and comfort that are specially designed for everyday wear in India. From sampling fabrics extensively before launch to considering everything from climate to durability, Shivaan’s approach is rooted in a simple idea: the clothes we wear most often deserve just as much thought as the ones we save for special occasions.
Fueled By Fashion- Growing up around the garment manufacturing business, you saw world-class quality being made right here in India. What made you realize it was time to build a quality basics brand locally?
Shivaan Seth- It wasn’t a specific moment or turning point I would say. We had been wearing our own clothes from the factory for years and years so we always knew it was possible, but I think especially when I moved back from the US I felt the need even more. There were Indian brands in every niche coming up but this one space we felt was severely underserved.
And looking at how friends and family were either using college or office merchandise as home t-shirts or only stocking on trips abroad, it kind of grew into this thing that “okay we are now sampling a few things because we found some really nice fabrics in the market”.
The whole philosophy is that we have everything we need to make a world-class product right here in India and yet it’s either coming from abroad or from international brands. That’s sort of how it came to be. It was a slow process of sampling, testing, identifying the right fabrics, the fits, the colors. All of it. And since we do our own manufacturing, the process looks very different than just placing an order.
Fueled By Fashion - Everyday clothing often gets overshadowed by logos and trends. When you looked at what was available in India, what did you feel brands were overlooking when it came to simple, daily wear?
Shivaan Seth- We felt that brands were pretty much overlooking the whole segment entirely. It was just one part of their selection, if it all, and it was not a focus for them - I would assume because it’s not as profitable to provide high quality clothes when you can just have customers continuously come back and shop with you each season for new styles.
And that market still does exist, of course and is probably larger than the market we operate in. But where we felt the market had a huge gap was this type of everyday wear that is not just for your home or for lounging but it could be for work, for stepping out, for travel - just about anywhere you want to feel comfortable while not looking like you’re wearing pyjamas.
Fueled By Fashion- Most brands usually stick to just standard sizing of S/M/L, while Better Basics offers tailored lengths for different Indian body types. How does that extra attention to fitting change the experience for the customer?
Shivaan Seth- It’s not that we don’t use S/M/L etc… We do but for certain styles we offer more detailed length options like -short, tall and regular... and most importantly, the styles themselves are supposed to cater to the varied fit preferences the Indian consumer would have. Alongside, we also offer a range of relaxed fit, regular fit and slim fit styles…
We offer cropped tees, tanks with differing degrees of neck drops. All of these things capture what the customer is actually looking for. A simple ribbed tank or light round neck t-shirt is not going to solve the problems of a diverse customer base… Which is why we offer lighter and heavier fabrics for tees, we offer ribbed tanks with and without the padded bras.
So I wouldn’t necessarily say we’ve reinvented sizing or fits, I like to think that we’re not forcing the customer to compromise on comfort, or quality.
Fueled By Fashion- Indian heat and humidity can be particularly demanding on everyday clothing. How does our climate influence the fabrics and fits you choose?
Shivaan Seth- Climate naturally influences every product and every fabric we test. It’s like the foundational layer that we have to operate on top of, like a base set of constants you can’t change. Although, I will say that because of the expertise and experience we have with the export business over the last 30 years, we naturally deviate more towards natural fibres like cotton and modal because we know the superior quality they have.
The climate also comes into play is deciding on certain blends we might add - 5% of spandex or keep it 100% cotton, the GSMs we choose for our fabrics so they could perform well not only in 40 degree weather but also as a single t-shirt in the cooler autumn days or as inner layers in the winter.
The extreme heat in peak summer has also made us appreciate pure linen as a fabric. Though we do not sell it right now, we are preparing it for early next year because it’s hard to beat in that weather. But again, it’ll go through testing, we’ll wear it, we’ll sample it, we’ll get it ready for the customer once we know for sure it is the right product.
Our brand also does a range of winter garments, some fleece jackets, hoodies, vests, sweatshirts etc. but it’s mostly for the northern half of the country and we don’t need heavily padded down jackets because that would overdo it.
So yes, climate is always influencing the decisions we make because it’s the one thing that is constantly coming in contact with the product and it would be naive to not take into account for a brand like ours.
Shivaan Seth- That initial set of sampling sort of laid the groundwork for how we go about it today. Because we didn’t set ourselves a deadline, we really made sure everything from fabric to fit to color shade to durability passed our tests and was up to the mark. Some of our best-sellers 2 years later are still from that initial set of styles, and some of the items I still wear on a weekly basis are from that initial set of sampling too.
So it was good to have that base set of products that we knew were up to the highest standards, and all the sampling that has followed now, follows the same pattern.
First figure out the fabric, then test it for style, fit, how the color behaves on the fabric. Is the fabric solving requests we’ve received from the customer, is it filling a gap we see currently in the Indian market? Is it going to stand the test of time - in garment form or durability, but also in terms of not being a “trend”?
There is a lot of thought and effort that goes into a piece before it’s available on the website, and that’s the nature of the brand and our philosophy; we never look at it as a thing that’s costing us fast growth or anything like that.
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