Interview Times 
Amaryllis is the brainchild of a sister-sister duo, bonded with love but living oceans apart. This journey brings them together so they can spend hours talking while doing what they love the most.. BEING CREATIVE AND MAKING PEOPLE HAPPY!!
MEET THE HUMANS BEHIND AMARYLLIS!!
Pooja Manuja did her Btech from GBPU, Pantnagar, and later an MBA from Narsee Monjee. Laced with more than 12 years of experience she is currently the director head of US IN BARCLAYS. Shweta Sharma did her BBA from the Amrapali Group and then pursued an MBA from the Fortune Group. With an experience of more than 5 years in the management consulting field, she has been providing exceptional service to 6Wresearch.
1. What inspired you to start Amaryllis?
Amaryllis is a result of my deep love for creativity and all things handcrafted not just in India but in many other corners around the world. There is something amazing about things built from scratch, not by a machine but by these super-talented artists those who spun magic with their hands. My original drive was to launch a handcrafted product line but it wasn’t until 2018, when I found our now head craft man, that I decided to use handcrafted fabric to be used for footwear. One thing led to another and our first footwear to launch turned out to be Juttis. It was exhilarating to see some of our first Juttis coming to life, from Inception to an actual living product – lively, colorful, and donning intricate details.
2. Why Amaryllis, any story behind such a delicate and unique name?
Oh, I love flowers, and at the same time wanted the Brand to be symbolic of vibrant & immensely beautiful craftsmanship. Amaryllis seemed like a perfect choice!
3. What makes your product different from others available in the market?
As a handcraft lover, I carry enormous respect for all Brands that carry the same spirit as Amaryllis which is delivering hand spun products. We at Amaryllis can boast of bringing best in class Zardozi, Aara, Phulkari, Gota and Kantha work Juttis. This is all thanks to the masterful work by our design team. The other very important aspect that sets us apart is comfort. Juttis as a product, are notorious to leave you with shoe bites, ours is designed to give you a comfortable experience all day long as you enjoy your special/all day occasions.
4. Is Amaryllis about variety footwear of just juttis? Can we expect expansion in your range of products?
Yes, our current product line indeed only comprises of Juttis sporting various Indian hand embroidery styles. With our growing Amaryllis loyal customer base and their continued love for our products, we are now more confident than ever and have started to work towards the expansion of the range. While we can’t reveal all the details yet, the expansion will include heels and a few other flat-base footwear styles still carrying hand-embroidered work. Comfort will be our top priority on all new designs as well.
5. While defining your products what would you regard them as comfort or beauty?
Our Brand & products embody both, beauty & comfort. Our mission is to help our customers to look their best but not at the cost of their feet getting injured or bruised.
6. Tell us something about the intricate work on juttis
As mentioned previously, our teams of craftsmen specialize in many Indian hand embroidery works, ranging from Zardozi, Kantha, Gota, Aari, Phulkari, and some mirror work. We are always on a hunt for the best art workers and hence the range of our embroidery work keeps growing. While meticulous embroidery is the fulcrum of all our designs, we stick to very high-quality raw materials that can make or break the finished product. We rely on our masters to help us pick the best raw material, including the base cloth, sequin, pearls, zari, gota, mirror, and the underlying thread that ties the raw material together. The product is finished by our other set of hand workers, based in Punjab, that pulls the embroidered work on Jutti base.
7. Where will Amaryllis be if juttis fall out of trend?
Indian handicraft in whatever form or fashion has been around for centuries and is here to stay for many decades to come. As the Western wear/footwear market is saturated, Indian consumers more than ever are gravitating back towards traditional. Having said that, Jutti is one footwear that is as versatile as it can get, Gen Z can be seen sporting them with Western outfits as well. While we are confident that love for Juttis is to remain for long like any other business to be sustainable you need to plan and diversify the product mix and we as a brand and company are already working in that direction. Plus, we would love to offer more to our loving customers.
8. How does the customer get to make the best choice, Is Amaryllis available for its customers?
We operate a 24X7 shop, with customer care operating in two time zones one India and another US Eastern. We go out of our way, to help customers with any questions they may pose to us. Helping them patiently along the way, answering their queries around quality, shipping, returns, exchanges and even helping them pick designs to best go with their outfits at hand. You won’t believe but if can’t help customers find a good match in our product line, we give them recommendations from
Competing brands. For us, the motto is helping the consumer and in return, they always come back to us with trust.
9. Whose idea was it to start this business, was it about making a benchmark, or just profit?
The idea was my brain child alone, however my family has been very supportive in helping me navigate through many choices to be made along the way. Designing to selling is a massive journey and my team built over time made the dream come true and made it a successful one too. The launch of the business was really to bring something to customers that they love and come back to. If you establish customer trust and loyalty, profits follow.
10. Indian market’s biggest question is affordability, where does your brand and product stand in this queue?
Frankly speaking, a good quality handcrafted product comes with a price tag so our products are not cheap. As highlighted earlier, neither we cut corners on raw material quality nor on how much value we assign to our craftsmanship. We pay our workers top of the class. All of this does add up to higher making cost, however we strive to save on our marketing efforts and shipping cost. We are direct to consumer with our own website, which is run with minimal maintenance cost. We tie up with trusted yet affordable shipping partners, the scale of sales help reduce this overhead further. All of this, low cost speed to market strategies help us reduce the price we pass on to the consumer and hence we are able to deliver very high-quality products, either better or matching most of our competition quality, yet at 30-35% lower price. Our very informed customers, return to us precisely because of that.
Inputs by Shweta Sharma and Pooja Manuja, Co-Founders of AMARYLLIS
