Wear House, the fashion industry game-changer

Wear House, a designer hub for shoppers and sellers, was unveiled by Lin Asia Holdings and House of Indi recently, uniting fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands under one roof in Colombo 7. Shining the spotlight on Sri Lankan designer brands, the store features top designers and emerging labels. In this interview, WH Managing Director and award-winning fashion designer Indi Yapa Abeywardena shares the thinking behind the operation and what it means for the Sri Lankan fashion industry. Following are excerpts:

Q: What’s WH all about and what exactly does it offer? 

A: It’s a designer hub for a variety of well-known designers displayed alongside the city’s freshest talent. While its racks cater more for women, its carefully curated cabinets carry all sorts of covetable trinkets and goods.

Q:Why WH? What led to the decision to collaborate in this manner and what are the envisaged outcomes?

A: WH stands for Wear and House, a space that offers brands associated in fashion, beauty and lifestyle. The decision to collaborate between Lin Asia Holdings, a subsidiary of Lanka Sportreizen (LSR) and House of Indi, was brought together because of the love and passion for fashion and all things related; it was further stamped by the Directors’ love to help women empowerment, social services and youth development. As for the future, our aim is to provide a platform that actually has registered international buyers for products made in Sri Lanka.

Q: WH aims to ‘reinvent the concept of retail’ and the website www.wearhouse.lk will not only enable customers to buy all products in one place, but also give space for online stores by new and emerging designers. Could you explain the thinking behind this? 

A: The e-commerce fashion industry is ever growing around the world, while we in Sri Lanka have designers and brands popping on Instagram and Facebook every day; not many have the assistance or a global scale platform like Asos, Etsy and Shopify that can be termed a Sri Lankan platform solely dedicated to fashion. At WH that is what we plan to achieve – give them the same service, marketing and global exposure as the above mentioned shopping platforms.

Q:What’s WH’s take on being sustainable and ethical? 

A: We are embracing it and we are promoting it to our vendors, we give prior access to fair trade brands. We will try to establish some of the most-loved eco stores in Sri Lanka on our online platform. We will also try to educate our valuable buyers that every purchase should have a purpose.

Q: WH has announced plans to launch its own fashion line too. What will it offer? 

A: WH plans to release capsule collections every other month, these will consist WH-ite (Angelic beach dresses with beeralu laces) BoHo (euro summer loving dresses) and Love WH (younger, adventure girl outfits).

Q: Could you explain the ‘Colombo Design District’ plan and where WH comes in?

A: WH is one store on the Colombo Design District (CDD) route. CDD consists of a specialised board that will manage events to make the area a must visit for anyone. CDD will consist of a shopping, art and food route within an allocated precinct in the area of Colombo 7. It’s a route map that will be launched to boost the tourism sector when the country opens up again. There are some amazing business on the route and we are super excited to be a part of it. 

Q:How does House of Indi tie in with WH? Does it dilute the exclusivity of your label, enable more access to it or elevate House of Indi and how?

A: House of Indi is an investing partner alongside Lin Asia Holdings; I am the Managing Director of WH. The signature label INDI or other lines from HOI are in no way associated with the brands or designers; these brands belong to their respective designers, their passion, skills and dedication are shown in them. 

Q:What can customers expect from your own ethnic wear brand Indi Bindi?

A: It’s a premium occasion wear line. Having worked with local artisans to source fabric due to the pandemic lockdown, expect contemporary, quality and sophisticated wear for women at accessible price points.

Q:Could you outline your journey as a designer? What would you list as the key highlights and challenges over the years?

A: As everyone knows, I’m a Colombo Fashion Week designer, who wholeheartedly supports the fashion industry of Sri Lanka. There is no sob story behind my journey as a designer; my passion came from my mother and success has been due to the strong family support system I have had behind me, from my father to brothers from an early design career stage.

Every Colombo Fashion week is a highlight; winning the Women in Management for Small Business Gold recently and winning the SLIM Restart Sri Lanka Resilience Award for SME Silver among some of the biggest corporate giants in Sri Lanka stand out too, but most of all having the correct staff, a team that is totally dedicated as much as I am to the growth of the business, is a fantastic feeling. 

Q: To close, where does Sri Lanka stand in the global fashion industry and what does it need to shine brighter on the international stage? 

A: I’ve been in this industry for 10 years now. In the last five years or so people within the industry have started to accept me as a designer worth mentioning. Since then I’ve been vocal that we actually need a network link to connect to international buyers. Only then will the rest of the world recognise the true potential of all the fashion designers in Sri Lanka.

We have some amazing designers who are masters in batik, pure silk drapes, beeralu, tie and dye, and sustainable, ethical and fair trade practices. I pray the fashion corporate bodies, fashion councils and Government institutions come forward, because with the pandemic we all have a reset and restart opportunity with the rest of the world on a level playing field. If fast fashion large garment factories can get business, then small-scale designers, who thrive on slow fashion, should get their chance on an international platform.