The store that dresses Prime Minister Modi

The Ahmedabad store that made Modi's monogrammed suit is inundated with requests from people who want customised attire

Long before Narendra Modi became the prime minister of India and his monogrammed suit, which was recently auctioned for Rs 4.3 crore, hogged the limelight, it was the ‘Modi kurta’ that was the talk of the town.

JadeBlue, the Ahmedabad-headquartered retail clothing chain that handles the prime minister’s wardrobe, was given the rights to use the label of ‘Modi kurta’ in 2012 by Modi when he was the chief minister of Gujarat. The outfit refers to the cotton, half-sleeve kurtas that the prime minister is fond of wearing.

But Modi’s association with JadeBlue is much older than that. Bipin Chauhan, who runs JadeBlue along with his brother, Jitendra Chauhan, has been styling Modi since 1989. He is also the man behind the pinstripe bandhgala suit that Modi wore during his meeting with US President Barack Obama at Hyderabad House in New Delhi in January.

Life for the Chauhan brothers has changed after tailoring  Modi’s suit, that had his name, “Narendra Damodardas Modi”, woven all over it. It made news worldwide. It’s difficult to get the brothers to speak when the matter concerns Modi. After much coaxing, Bipin Chauhan finally agrees to meet at their store located on the Chimanlal Girdharlal Road in the heart of Ahmedabad.

“The suit,” he says, “has changed JadeBlue’s image. It has given more mileage to our brand than anything else ever has.” Enquiries, he adds, have spiked across all the brands that the store houses. “It has brought us the limelight we could have never managed on our own.”

The suit of Modi on display at its auction in Surat

So how did Modi place the order for the suit? He did not, says Chauhan. “The suit was gifted to Modi by one of our customers,” he says while stoically refusing to give further information.

An employee at the store says that while enquiries and demand for suits with names embroidered or woven into pinstripes have shot up, pulling off something like this involves a good deal of finesse. So, the work is generally outsourced, he adds. Outsourced to whom? That he refuses to say.

An exclusively men’s store, JadeBlue offers a collection of men’s formals, casuals, club and ethnic wear as well as accessories. Spread across 14,000 square feet at CG Road in Ahmedabad, it has 150 employees. The price of readymade suits, available in different brands, starts at Rs 10,000, while in-house and customised suits cost several times more, depending on the fabric and the  customisation. It is rumoured that Modi’s suit cost Rs 10 lakh.

The Chauhans are seventh-generation tailors who started out with a shop called Supremo before they diversified. Today, JadeBlue has 19 stores across the country. And its patrons include Gautam Adani, the chairman of the Adani Group and the seventh richest Indian, Nirma’s Karsanbhai Patel, Zydus Cadila’s Pankaj Patel and Narendra Somani of the Bhagwati Group. Chauhan’s sons have also joined the family business of tailoring and designing.

While their popularity has soared, another thing has changed. Earlier, it is reported that Jitendra Chauhan would go to the chief minister’s residence is Gandhinagar with his finest tailor in tow to take measurements for Modi’s clothes. With Modi now the prime minister, those direct meetings have reduced.