Journey of inception of the brand DaMENSCH
Innerwear is the fastest growing apparel category where growth post-Covid has been even faster. Innerwear was a highly unorganized sector, however, in the last 5 years, the market has moved towards more branded segments. As a category, about 10% of purchases are now made online which is indicative of an apparent shift in behaviour.
A consumer who would shy away from trying innerwear online now knows that brands like DaMENSCH offer a try-on guarantee, and the first one is on the house if he is not happy with the purchase, or in case of a size issue. 95% of our consumers are men who are choosing the brand because the modern man is not negligent about his innerwear and considers it an essential purchase.
Business, Category, Product range Description
DaMENSCH’s product range of innerwear includes “Deo-Soft” – India’s first odour cancelling underwear, “Neo-Skin” – thermoregulating vests made from a curated composition of sustainable bamboo fibers, among other products catering to the comfort of the modern man. We plan to connect with these cohorts through our technological superiority and contemporary design. Our recently launched All Degree Polos are 100% eco-friendly, made of Coolmax Eco fiber tech which creates polyester from recycled plastic while adding superior moisture-wicking capabilities. Would anyone have ever dreamt innerwear could eliminate odour? Well, we did! Indeed, all our collections are made with the technical expertise to achieve the unthinkable. Our contemporary designs are for modern men who think differently. We marry designs with today’s forward-thinking men and our Deo-Soft collection is evidence of this.
What makes DaMENSCH unique?
At DaMENSCH, we are pushing the limits of textile engineering and solving unseen problems, we believe in sustainability and innovation — which is why we also know that better product last longer, and hence help the environment. Staying true to our philosophy of slow fashion, we launched Constants – a collection of T-Shirts, Shorts, Joggers, Polos and Sweatshirts which comes with an industry-first 500-day wear & tear warranty. Our new All Degree Polos with Coolmax fabric comfortable for all-weather has polyester made of 100% recycled plastic.
Our packaging too is made to be sustainable – choosing between corn husk and paper-based packaging has resulted in saving 10 lakhs plus units of single-use plastic – almost 160 Burj Khalifas if you pile them up!
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How do you see D2C growing in India currently? How are you leveraging it for DaMENSCH?
The prerequisites for being a D2C firm start with a very strong desire to fulfill the commitments that are going to be made to your consumers, capabilities that would help establish your brand starting from engineering to supply chain to marketing and production, customer transformation to understand your target audience and management and culture that help thrive the zeal to succeed.
D2C Journey and The Challenges you Faced, Competitors – Direct, Indirect
Our biggest competition is actually the mindset of an audience made to rely on fast fashion. However currently, made-in-India brands XYXX and Tailor & Circus are currently our biggest competitors doing exceptionally well. What differentiates us is the proprietary technology in our innerwear and the industry-first 500 day warranty that we offer on our Constant collection. Our product range of innerwear includes “Deo-Soft” – India’s first odour cancelling underwear, “Neo-Skin” – thermoregulating vests made from a curated composition of sustainable bamboo fibers, among other products catering to the comfort of the modern man.
Growth no. – Revenue growth in % in last 2 years – 3X Y-O-Y
Funding details – 1700 million INR
Founder details
Anurag Saboo
Anurag is a co-founder at DaMENSCH and his aim is to redefine men’s essential wear in India by bringing innovation in the apparel sector. He leads the brand expansion charter through the levers of channel, geography and portfolio that he helms. Anurag started his professional journey following his engineering at IIT Delhi by joining the E-commerce bandwagon at Snapdeal. He then joined Nykaa as part of the founding team to lead the company to a unicorn status during his 4 yr stint across product management and expansion roles. Anurag doesn’t come from a business family and never had entrepreneurship in his career plan however when Gaurav floated the idea of DaMENSCH Anurag instinctively was draw towards the idea and while he did his due diligence eventually took the plunge. Anurag credits his mom as his inspiration for foraying into entrepreneurship as he grew up watching her train women set up a small business of their own.
Gaurav Pushkar
Gaurav is the Co-founder at DaMENSCH – a premium men’s essential wear company that is known to have brought innovation into the men’s apparel category in India.
Gaurav is an engineer from the prestigious IIT Delhi specializing in electronics and communication, and a resident of the Kumaon Hostel he also is into dramatics and was actively involved with NSD. Gaurav confirms that the entrepreneurial bug bit him early in life coming from a family business background, he kept trying his hands at different avenues from running a magazine in college to harnessing his knowledge of the seller ecosystem in E-commerce as a side gig.
Gaurav soon learnt that his true passion was in building a consumer brand and it was his personal consumer behavior of desiring excellence in men’s essential wear that drove him to find a gap in the Indian men’s apparel sector where comfort and functionality were neither an easy find nor an affordable one.
Seeing this as a viable business option Gaurav started researching more about fabric, dyes and manufacturing process, even today at DaMENSCH Gaurav’s interests lie in building products, trend watching, and studying concepts that can be harnessed for economies of scale and his vision is to have patented trendsetters by DaMENSCH.
