MUMBAI, INDIA: A woman can start her day in a meeting, work from a café in the afternoon, spend hours travelling, run errands and end the evening at dinner. Her clothes, however, are still expected to change with every context.
That disconnect is what led designer and entrepreneur Arushi Roopchandani to launch Atleisure, an elevated comfort-wear label designed around the full reality of a woman’s day. The brand brings together the softness and stretch of comfortwear with silhouettes and finishes intended to work across professional and personal settings.
The idea came from Roopchandani’s own experience while running her first fashion business, Roology. A typical day could move between client meetings, studio work, production issues, inventory and packing shipments. She would wear a blazer to a meeting, return home to change, and then leave again in clothes comfortable enough for hours of physical work.
“I had reached a point where I was changing clothes several times because the outfit that looked right for a meeting was not comfortable enough for the work that followed,” says Roopchandani. “I wanted to get dressed once in the morning and know that whatever the day became, my clothes would still work.”
As Roopchandani began speaking to manufacturers, founders, freelancers and women across industries, she found that the problem was not unique to her. Women described spending long days in restrictive clothing because comfortable options felt too casual, carrying changes of clothes or planning their days around going home to change.
Atleisure calls its category elevated comfort wear. The collection uses cotton interlock and cotton Lycra, composed of 93 per cent cotton and 7 per cent spandex, with two-way or four-way stretch depending on the garment. The fabrics have smooth inner surfaces designed for extended wear and were selected with temperature shifts between Mumbai’s outdoor heat and air-conditioned spaces in mind.
“I want a woman to stop thinking about her clothes after she puts them on,” says Roopchandani. “She should be able to work from a café, sit through meetings, travel for hours, run errands, meet her friends, and go to dinner without reaching a point where all she wants is to go home and change. She should feel comfortable without feeling underdressed.”
Getting the product right required seven to eight sample rounds, repeated wash tests and extended wear trials. Instead of relying on short fittings, women wore the garments for seven to eight hours while sitting, walking, stretching, eating and working. The final trial involved women with different body types spending close to a full day in the pieces, followed by several months of regular wear and washing by testers.
“A garment can feel perfectly comfortable when someone stands in front of a mirror for ten minutes,” Roopchandani says. “The real question is what happens after four or eight hours, when she has been sitting, walking, eating, working, and moving through different temperatures. We had to see the clothes being lived in.”
The thinking behind Atleisure extends beyond the product. While building Roology, Roopchandani often equated working longer with moving forward. Client and stylist messages could continue between midnight and three in the morning, while stepping away from work felt increasingly difficult. She missed her mother’s 50th birthday, her parents’ 25th anniversary and her own birthday because work repeatedly seemed more urgent.
That experience changed her understanding of ambition. For Roopchandani, burnout is not only about working too much; it is also about the guilt that can surface when people try to stop.
Atleisure is built on the belief that rest does not diminish ambition. The brand does not position itself against hard work, but challenges the idea that sleep, family, friendship, recreation or stillness need to be earned after ambition has been satisfied.
“Careers are not built by never falling down,” says Roopchandani. “They are built by learning how to get back up, again and again, without giving up. Sometimes that begins with giving yourself permission to rest.”
ABOUT ATLEISURE: Atleisure is an elevated comfort-wear label founded by designer and entrepreneur Arushi Roopchandani. Created for women whose days move between work, travel, errands and personal commitments, the brand combines soft, stretch-led fabrics with polished silhouettes designed for extended wear. Atleisure is built on the belief that rest is part of ambition and that living a full life is not separate from pursuing meaningful work.
