Most women in India buy bras under the male gaze. One startup is changing that.

Clovia founder Neha Kant

Indian women, brought up on generous doses of Victorian morality, are shy when it comes to bra shopping.

And yet, since my granny’s time – which is more or less the first time many of them beheld themselves in a bra – they’ve had to buy the stuff from shops run by men. And these shops sell anything from aftershave to men’s underpants.

Lingerie has always been talked about in a hushed voice in our country.

Under the discomfiting gaze of male shoppers, women have had to spell out their bust size, style, and color preferences. Typically, these have been black, white, or cream thingies with two straps and cups. (Ok, may be a slightly more evolved version of that!)

But here’s the shocker. Unless you are at a mall in a big city, that is how much of India still buys its bras.

This is the scenario Neha Kant is trying to change. She is the founder of online lingerie startup Clovia. It designs, manufactures, and distributes fashion lingerie, innerwear, nightwear, and even shapewear, shipping 250,000 units a month.

“Lingerie has always been talked about in a hushed voice in our country. It is an uncomfortable experience to shop from physical stores mostly run by men,” says Neha, who founded the Noida-based startup in 2012 along with her husband Pankaj Vermani, and friends Suman Choudhry and Aditya Chaturvedi.

“We run as a blend of fashion and technology and we firmly believe that something comfortable need not be boring,” says Neha.

Turning lingerie entrepreneur

Neha was born in Delhi, but spent her childhood in the conservative town of Haridwar.

Only plain vanilla options existed.

Her father was an engineer in the public sector. And since she was surrounded by engineers pretty much all the time, she was expected to follow in their footsteps or become a doctor.

But Neha resisted being typecast, pursuing a masters in management instead. She first worked with an ad agency, and then moved to ecommerce.

“During one of my travels abroad, I happened to come across a whole range of lingerie and was shocked to realize the severe drought of good lingerie solutions available to Indian women,” says Neha.

Giving bras a tech lift

The challenge for online lingerie