Ground Circularity / Fabcurate Feature

Collection: Threads of Surat

The Fabcurate Experiment: Scaling Personalised Fashion Sans Much Waste

In Surat’s textile maze, there’s a fast fashion player going sustainable with almost zero minimums, made-to-order fabrics, and size-inclusive garments shipped across India and beyond. Flipping the bulk-first playbook, from one metre to a multi-crore business, Fabcurate’s small-batch smarts with print, cut, stitch, ship is scaling big as it rewrites the e-commerce rulebook.

Richa Bansal

5 November 2025

6 minutes

Long Story, Cut Short

Handles 500 orders a day with no minimums, serving sizes XXS to 15XL through a waste-free, make-to-order model.
Logged ₹30 crore turnover last year; targeting ₹35 crore with 20–25% annual growth.
Achieved 35–40% customer retention, with exports making up 20–25% of total revenue.

Discipline and Speed Fabcurate has proved that a small-batch, customised, and sustainable model can scale to reach a multicrore turnover. Fabcurate

Sandwiched in a multi-storied building in the synthetic capital of India is a floor that hums with people designing, cutting, stitching, checking quality and even making parcels to be despatched to all corners of the country.

The buzz is palpable.

This is the epicentre from where Fabcurate and Neoffa operate—two make-to-order labels that stitch by stitch are trying to emerge as brands in their own right.

It started in 2019 just before the world had all but shut down—yes, COVID-19.

The launch then and the growth since has been rather phenomenal with not much spent in brandishing itself to the world.

Yes, you do get accosted by its ads on social media platforms, but it has more or less grown silently, far from any arc lights.

So, today if you are a designer or a lay person, and want some wash-and-wear fabric, read polyester and blends, in contemporary digital prints, any quantity, from as low as 1 meter, or design your own print, and also looking for me mesura, across wears, from sizes XS to 6XL, then Fabcurate is where you need to click on.

And, if you are in the younger age group and wish for contemporary silhouettes, be it a ready-to-wear western or Indian wear, stitched in any size, from XXS to 15XL or more, then Neoffa is where you need to log in.

Fabcurate, the parent company, was started “with a very clear purpose—to reduce wastage in textiles.” Being in Surat and seeing first-hand how small lots can add up to unwanted inventory and waste, the journey began by offering fabrics digitally printed, plain dyed, embroidered, imported, and in small quantities so that someone sitting at home also could order as little as one metre.

The whole model is designed around minimising wastage, printing only what has been ordered, nothing in bulk. For cutting, automated machines optimise the template layout and reduce leftover fabric. Every design draft is prepared in advance, so once it goes to print and stitch, there’s very little chance of waste.

A lot of established brands focus largely on bulk mass production. The Fabcurate differentiator, reducing wastage through the make-to-order model, allowed it to be size-inclusive and customisable.

TAGS

Company:

Country:

India

Individual:

Urvisha Panchani

Sector:

Circularity

Subject:

Pre-Consumer Waste

The name, Fabcurate, speaks for itself—the idea was to allow people to literally “curate their own fabric.” Traditionally, digital printing was available only in bulk—10, 15, sometimes 20 metres at a time. Boutiques or individuals who needed just a few metres were not entertained. The idea was to change that.

The model has obviously worked. It figures: Last year, the turnover was around ₹30 crore. On a steady upward trajectory, the target set for this year is at about ₹35 crore.

Leading the story is Urvisha Panchani, from a first-gen family deeply entrenched in the business of textiles. She expands: “We wanted to be flexible. Initially, we focused on fabrics, but soon added garments, largely Indianwear, with styles designed to be as free-size as possible. For instance, sarees and jackets require little or no measurement, making them easier to produce without waste. The whole model is built around reducing waste while keeping the experience customised and inclusive. “The response has been very encouraging.”

The move from fabrics to garments came around 2021, after COVID-19. “Customers would often ask—‘I can see this fabric, but what if I want it as a garment? Whom do I go to?’ That made us realise that if we were already making customised fabrics, we could also provide made-to-order garments. It was a natural extension. Today, we handle both fabrics and garments, and both streams are growing.”

What works for the labels is that there is no minimum order quantity. Even a single metre can be ordered. For instance, viscose costs about ₹500 per metre and polyester around ₹250 per metre. “If a customer shares a reference photo of the design they want, we can create that too.”

Being a direct-to-consumer label literally with its own marketplace means “we connect directly with customers. If there is a delivery issue, we can speak with our various logistics partners ourselves, or even switch providers. That level of control is not possible when selling through third-party platforms. Our aim is to reach the maximum number of pin codes and ensure reliable service everywhere”.

The clientele is a mixed bag including individuals who enjoy getting fabrics stitched at the local tailor, boutique owners who order five or ten metres regularly based on their own customer needs, and of course the online buyers who can choose from the wide range of prints directly.

On average, the company now handles around 500 online orders a day, from across India as well as overseas. Demand is evenly split between fabrics and garments. However, fabrics still account for more, “since we started earlier and built demand there. The garment segment is also growing steadily.

“We’ve delivered to places as far as Jammu & Kashmir and Assam, as well as remote villages where even courier services don’t usually operate. In such cases, we use India Post, which takes longer, around 10–12 days, but customers are simply happy to receive their orders”.

Both Fabcurate and Neoffa source their fabrics from multiple vendors within Surat and rest of the country, while some is imported too, depending on demand. Fabcurate

The Team: The People Behind the Show

In a business that’s all about prints and cuts, Fabcurate’s 7–8 member strong design team is sourced from across India. Surat being a hub for textiles and fashion, the ecosystem ensures that whatever skill is required, one can find, attract as it does both students and professionals.

In total, the team is about 180 people, including tailors. Of these, around 90 are involved in stitching. The rest work in pattern-making, embroidery, and other value-addition areas.

Women form a large part of the stitching unit, and the company claims to provide them with a “safe and supportive environment.”

All employees are covered under ESIC, PF and other compliances required of a private limited company.

The year 2022 saw the start of the Fabcurate Foundation. Through it, a separate team collects unused clothes from people and distributes them to those in need. “We also provide books and medicines, and support orphan children where we can. We are not yet at the statutory CSR threshold — companies need profits of ₹5 crore or turnover of ₹200–250 crore to be mandated — but we still felt the need to contribute,” concludes Urvisha.

International orders are growing too, particularly from the US, UK, and the Middle East—the largest overseas market. Exports run separately under the required licensing, securing around 20–25% of the total turnover. “We see strong potential for further expansion there. Even though many orders are small in quantity, at times just one or two pieces, the international demand is consistent. Customers abroad value the quality and affordability even after paying shipping,” says Urvisha.

Going forward, the focus is on a constant growth of about 20–25% annually. “We want to maintain the make-to-order and low-waste model while expanding our product categories and customer base.”

There is no plan to move into physical retail as of now. “We have considered physical stores, but as a growing startup our priority is strengthening the e-commerce side. Perhaps in future we may look at select offline presence, but not yet.”

Quick commerce too is not immediately on the agenda. “We are exploring but make-to-order has inherent timelines. Each garment takes about 48 hours of stitching, so it cannot be delivered within the few-minutes or hours window that defines quick commerce. It’s something we may adapt to in the future, but it needs time and process changes.”

Looking back, Urvisha says, the pandemic saw a strong shift towards online shopping. People across age groups started trusting e-commerce more, and that “trend benefitted us. From 2020 onwards, each year has been a growth phase—2020-end was good, 2021 better, and 2022 continued that momentum.”

Elaborating on the financials, she reveals: “E-commerce margins are always tight. In the beginning, we were working at just 2–3% profit margins. But this year we expect to reach between 5–6%. It’s improving year on year, and that is a major achievement for us given the high marketing spends.

The biggest cost component is marketing, Urvisha contends, specifically performance marketing. “To reach customers you need to invest in advertising on platforms like Meta and Google. For almost every e-commerce company, 20–30% of the spend goes into marketing. Without that, you simply cannot scale”.

What helps is that the company has been able to achieve a retention rate of around 35–40%. “Retention has become a strength for us. People get know that the make-to-order model ensures minimal wastage and makes us truly sustainable. We print only what is required, and that too across all sizes—from XXS to 15XL—and even customised. That inclusivity is rare.

“Second, our direct connection with customers. By running our own platform, we stay in control of the entire experience — from fabric design to delivery. It allows us to be responsive, whether it’s a small boutique in a remote town or a customer in the Middle East ordering just one piece.”

Both Fabcurate and Neoffa source their fabrics from multiple vendors within Surat and rest of the country, while some is imported too, depending on demand. Seasonality matters a lot—for example, velvets and suedes during winter, cottons like mulmul and cambric during summer. “Additionally, we work directly with mills in Mumbai and commission vendors to create exclusive fabrics only for us.”

Consumption is not easy to calculate but with 500 orders a day, assuming an average of three metres each, that’s around 1,500 metres daily and this means tens of thousands of metres monthly. “So, although our model is about small, customised units, in volume terms it adds up to significant numbers.”

Urvisha Panchani

Director

Fabcurate

We wanted to be flexible. Initially, we focused on fabrics, but soon added garments, largely Indianwear, with styles designed to be as free-size as possible. For instance, sarees and jackets require little or no measurement, making them easier to produce without waste. The whole model is built around reducing waste while keeping the experience customised and inclusive. “The response has been very encouraging.

Richa Bansal

RICHA BANSAL has more than 30 years of media industry experience, of which the last 20 years have been with leading fashion magazines in both B2B and B2C domains. Her areas of interest are traditional textiles and fabrics, retail operations, case studies, branding stories, and interview-driven features.

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