When one talks of nation builders, one usually refers to the great industrialists who were tasked with building magnificent edifices for schools or hospitals. Or then our freedom fighters, mostly khadi-clad Congressmen who the current ruling dispensation tries to disregard. But there was also a small army of textile savants who were determined to restore to India its lost glory in making the finest cloth in the world, a status snatched from us by the early traders of the East India Company.
I will very comfortably count Bimla Nanda Bissell as one of our nation builders. Her husband, the American expat John Bissell, and she founded Fabindia in 1960, a company that remains at the forefront of retailing artisanal products, mostly clothing and furnishings, and supporting innumerable rural artisans and farmers. Fabindia had an estimated turnover of Rs1,688 crore last year, and it has several hundred stores across India, and a dozen abroad.
Bimla, beloved in Delhi’s elite circles as “Bim”, died on January 9 at age 93. Those who knew her well remember her as a bundle of energy who, despite being in a wheelchair, outlasted many others at soirees. Her husband John had died of a stroke a few decades earlier, and Fabindia has since been run by their son William or Will. John and Bim also have a daughter, Monsoon.
John used to work for Macy’s New York, before he joined the Ford Foundation and was sent to India to advise the Central Cottage Industries and offer grants to artisans. Soon, he famously founded Fabindia as a furnishings export company, registering it at his two-bedroom flat in Delhi’s Golf Links. It was Bim who encouraged John to work with handloom artisans; she had experience in social work and education after spending some time with the World Bank. Designer and friend Ritu Kumar says in a social media post that Bim was as instrumental in shaping Fabindia as John was.
Over the years, Fabindia grew to include furniture, food, personal care and even jewellery, but it was always Bim’s aesthetics that shaped the brand and its products. Fabindia shares in a social media post: “She (Bim) loved matching everything, from her accessories to her chappals. A spirited promoter and patron of Fabindia ever since her husband, John, brought his vision of working with India’s craftspeople to life.”
Fabindia is as much a story of India as it is a story of doing business in India. In 1976, it opened its first retail outlet in Greater Kailash, Delhi, when Emergency prohibited companies from being registered at residential premises.
This was also the year when the RBI ruled that foreign equity in India had to be limited to 40 per cent, and the company’s shares were then distributed to family members and important suppliers.
After John’s stroke 25 years ago, Will took over retail. Fabindia began to compete with the government-owned Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), a poorly managed and badly funded chain of emporia across India. Fabindia has long been mired in controversies. In 2021, they were forced to pull out their campaign for the collection ‘Jashn-e-Rivaaz’, because some felt it was their Diwali campaign and thus needed a Hindu name. In 2015, the then HRD minister Smriti Irani filed a complaint against a Goa branch of Fabindia, accusing it of having hidden cameras in the trial room.
In 2022, Fabindia’s IPO was to be announced, and both Bim and Madhukar Khera (the son of one of John’s dhurrie suppliers) transferred 7.75 lakh shares together to artisans and farmers. The still-pending IPO has left many in fashion and retail nervous, as Fabindia’s numbers are formidable.
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