Love for shopping led to Ayesha Kapur's own label

"Black" fame actress Ayesha Kapur enjoys shopping for accessories so much that she decided to make it her business and launched her own label - Ayesha Accessories.

"Ayesha (her company) is an inspiration for me and my mother Jacqueline, who is also the co-founder and MD of Ayesha Accessories, that grew out of the fun that we have while shopping for accessories," said the 18-year-old student-cum-entrepreneur.

As a teenager she splurged all over the world while accompanying her mother for her merchandising trips, except in India as no "girls-have-fun things" were available here.

After realizing that "there are more young girls in India than anywhere else, the idea of designing and creating an accessory brand for young girls and women came up", she said and added: "It started over the dinner table."

Ayesha Accessories is a one-stop candy shop for everything funky and young, including fashion jewellery, hair accessories, sunglasses, watches and much more.

Her father Dilip Kapur, who owns accessory brand Hidesign, supported her in her endeavour.

"He was not one of the inspirations behind starting the brand, but he offered a lot of support to both me and my mother while making business decisions," she told IANS from Deerfield Academy, US, where she is currently studying.

Since she is away from her home, it is difficult for her to be completely involved, but her contribution to her brand can't be ignored.

Her job involves offering different, young, perspective to Ayesha Accessories. She is also involved in trend research and works with design team. In addition to these, she also communicates with young customers by updating blog.

"I am in the boarding school in the US and, therefore, it is difficult at times to be completely involved. I do, however, keep doing work through email and Skype," she said.

She started her brand in October 2010 with a small space in her mother's department store Casablanca in Pondicherry. In two-and-half year it has grown into 40 stores that are located in malls in cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. It is also available through shop-in-shops at Shoppers Stops.

"We have always looked at opening our stores in the malls where most of the youngsters generally love to hang out. The price ranges from Rs.90 to Rs.1190," said the teenager, who is targeting youngsters between 15 and 25 for her brand.

Her target audience won't be limited to women and girls as she has also come up with a separate line for men.

"We have also recently launched a new line of accessories for young men called Unknown, a sub-brand of Ayesha Accessories. We will soon launch a kids range too," she added.

Among her accessories, Ayesha's favourite is the laptop bag.

"I love our laptop bags. I think they are unique and a lot of them have bold statements printed on them like "I make boys cry". I also really love the ones in which we mix Western and Indian prints on the laptop bags," she elaborated.