Masaba Gupta, who is currently expecting her first child, recently recalled a time when she didn’t have Rs 12,000 to pay to her cook. The celebrity fashion designer, actor and the daughter of veteran actress Neena Gupta, talked about the time when she shut 5 of her stores in a span of two months and was left with just Rs 2 lakh in her bank account.
In an interview with Faye D’Souza, Masaba recalled the darkest phase of her life. She said, “In 2020, when COVID hit, it was the worst time of my life. I don’t think I had even Rs 12,000 to pay to my cook. It was that bad. In March, 2020, the lockdown happened and we thought it was mostly for a day or two, and it was extended to 14 days. In those 14 days, my life completely turned around.”
Masaba Gupta recalled being stuck in Goa with her now husband Satyadeep Mishra. “I think it was end of March or the beginning of April when my business head said, ‘There is no money now. It’s done. Nobody is buying anything.’ Fashion was at the bottom of the food chain at that time.” She added how she asked her artisans, who too were stuck in the store, and living there during COVID, to start making masks with the available fabric.
Masaba said, “Even if it makes us just Rs 20,000, its alright. Make something. Some money should keep coming. And it did, a little bit. I remember during that time from 2 pm to 5pm in the afternoon, I would be on calls, hearing the brand will shutdown on July 10. The dates would keep changing. Sometimes July 15, sometimes August. House of Masaba was wrapping up. We were on calls with malls, every store, landlords, requesting them to reduce the rent. Some people were very kind. We were so bad that we took our security deposits back from some people. We were in the middle of a crazy expansion. I had my investors on call, who said you should think of wrapping up. We don’t think this is going to work and there is going to be a different world post-COVID.”
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She added, “I remember crying after every call. My business head was confident, he was sure something would work out. But, we shut down five stores in two months. Some were franchises. Some were company owned. I think I had some Rs 2 lakhs in the bank account. So we thought we will hold on to that Rs 2 lakhs, keep making masks and keep our focus and cut our losses.”
During the interview, the fashion designer also revealed how the release of Masaba Masaba in August changed her world. “In August, Netflix approached. They were like we have shot Masaba Masaba and we are going to release it. I was shocked. It was amid COVID. They sent a crew over to Goa, we did some marketing and a lot of things virtually. I was nervous. I didn’t know if anyone would watch it. I didn’t think if anybody had the temperament at that time.”
“On August 20, it came out, and my sales head called me and said, ‘We did sales on the website. I think we did some couple of lakhs and suddenly I had some power. I think from then on, I just went with it. People started to watch the show, they started to discover the brand. Masaba Masaba saved me in a time where I didn’t know what else to do. A year after that, things stabilised and I didn’t have to shut my label down”, she added.
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