The Journey of Arpita Ganesh: The Indian Bra Lady

Buttercups are one of the most innovative lingerie boutiques, currently both online and offline in India. It retails the world’s finest curated lingerie brands. It has differentiated with its offerings; from personalized sizing to fitting, to consultations based on your requirements, the enterprise promises to care for the discerning women clientele it caters to.

Arpita Ganesh, the passionate entrepreneur of Buttercups is on a mission. The journey till now has not been easy for her as she has seen more shares of downs than ups but still, she refused to give up. She pursued her passion and has a mission to change the way women perceive themselves and their bodies. She has received formal training from Chantelle and is now changing the way Indian women interact with lingerie. She intends to bring to Indian women an international bra experience at the Indian prices.

It has been a long and hard journey for Arpita, following a passion that is still a ‘taboo’ in Indian society. She is still fighting myths, changing mindsets and educating even the most educated women in an area of their life that they have never given thought to or never openly talked about.

Explaining and convincing investors, most of whom are men is a challenge because there will never be a relation to the product or offering of Buttercups. But now the Buttercups have enough customers who believe that it must come to life and they want to go out and do whatever they can to make it happen.

The faith and push of customers show that Arpita has a proposition which impacts the lives of women and that everyone who has tried Buttercups, wants more and more women to feel this change.

She has come to be known as the ‘Indian Bra Lady’ in the international lingerie circles and she loves the tag.

Launching an app to help women find their right size in brands available in India was another big step taken by her. The app was built by her fellow entrepreneurs who did it because they saw her passion and wanted to help.

Getting 3000 women across the world to subscribe to her bra blog, abrathatfits was highly commendable. She runs and manages the blog herself, having learned how to do so from another kind-hearted entrepreneur who took the time to help her set it up.

She has gained enough knowledge over the past 6 years to be able to consult some of the most well-known lingerie companies and brands like M&S and Fredericks, that in itself is a remarkable achievement, considering social conditioning and the fact that she is a  ‘woman from India’ talking about the considered taboo “lingerie”.

The journey has been a struggle as it is not easy to run a retail business, but there are two things that still drive her — the conviction of people around her and her own conviction that she can do it the best. She wants every woman in India to experience good fitting bras.

Technology is her second love. It makes even things like bra fittings an experience that can reach out to millions and she is constantly reading and innovating on how she can mix technology and bras to reach out to more and more women.

In 6 years, the market has evolved and changed unbelievably and online shopping has a lot to do with this and so does the evolvement of the Indian women. Over the years, women here have become more aware of themselves, take care of themselves, want better things and are going out and getting them with a great confidence. Women are willing to go an extra mile to feel comfortable and look good, not for others but for themselves. They have stopped compromising and making do with the average product as earlier, now they know they want the best for themselves because they deserve the best and they are willing to go out there and get it. This is why this is the right time for Buttercups.

Arpita says that the other self-brand sites are focused on ‘sexy’, ‘funky’, ‘low cost’ models but the Buttercups have a clear focus on quality, experience and reaching aware consumers in a very different age and economic bracket.

the Arpita dreams of someday being able to roam all over this amazing world and lives in the hope of having new experiences and meeting more wonderful people.