In the monsoon of 2019, Nisha Vaidya and Aarti Menon met at a Bandra playgroup with the same
complaint: the beautiful little dress each had bought that week had already been returned. One had a
seam that left a red line across a three-month-old's shoulder. The other bled dye in the first wash.
Between them they had four children under five, two full-time jobs and absolutely no intention of
starting a clothing label.
They started anyway. The first AV Fashion run was 40 pieces, cut and stitched by a five-person unit in
Dharavi, using double-gauze cotton sourced from a mill in Erode that already held OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100
certification. They sold out in nine days, mostly to friends of friends. The name is simply their
initials — Aarti and Vaidya — because naming things is harder than sewing them.
Six years on, that same unit is still with us, now twenty-two people strong and paid above the
Maharashtra minimum wage with provident fund and paid leave. We have dressed more than 12,000 families
across India, from Kochi to Guwahati, and we still cut in small batches of 60 to 120 pieces so that
nothing sits in a warehouse for a season and nothing gets made just to fill a rack.
“If we would not put it on our own child, it does not get made. That has been the only rule
since day one.”
Nisha Vaidya & Aarti Menon — Founders
