Imagine having a dummy wedding (spend Rs 15 crores, charter private planes to Udaipur, concerts to all night parties) to keep the family happy (they kept pushing him to get married), but he is still single. Studying aerospace engineering from IIT Bombay, but working in fashion; travelling by Uber till he was 33, then suddenly buying only the best automobiles – Maserati, Mclaren Artura, Aston Martin, Maybach S680.

Meet the man who is the new tenant of the historic 100-year-old Ismail building in Juhu, paying a rent of Rs 206 crores (5 years, Rs10 lakh daily rent). The 60,000-square feet space earlier taken by Zara is now with Pernia’s PopUp shop founder Abhishek Agarwal (Monty) of Purple Style Labs. 

Salman Khan and his family (for three years) are investors in his business, along with Shah Rukh Khan and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. “I am like a rich wife, I am super lazy. I don’t like intellectual conversations, I have zero personal responsibility, I own 30 percent of my company, (it is worth Rs 3,500 crore),” says Aggarwal.

Many would find Agarwal quite confident, sometimes too sure, so when I ask him, let us talk about the setbacks, he kind of evades that question. Only a passing reference to actress Maduri Dixit, (as he’s a 90s kid who saw all her films), and how the line they wanted to start with her signature saris did not take off. “Matrix, her agency, was being too difficult and the actress didn’t want to get rid of them,” he bluntly tells me.

You would believe a boy from Rourkela would know nothing about style. Unlike popular belief, Tier 2 and 3 cities are cosmopolitan, and being a Marwari always helps. The steel plant in Rourkela brought both money and employment! His joint family deals in supermarkets: five brothers own 7-8 shops, as well as a blossoming spice trade.

“No one cared if I topped, or went to IIT, as no one had an academic bent of mind. I was a typical North Indian brat who would travel to Kolkata with a close group of friends, every weekend to just shop,” laughs Agarwal. And this outgoing nature helped in IIT too,. I wonder if Marwaris are genetically sharper? He claims he would never study, but his analytical mind helped him ace science in school; Maths and physics were his soulmates. But more than this, it was snooker (he is a professional national level player).

“The advantage of studying in IIT is that the boy from Bihar learns about Linkin Park and the one from posh Delhi learns colloquial Hindi,” he smiles. Besides being a Hindi poet (did 200 shows, never had stage fright), failing first year in Maths in IIT, in 2015 after working as an investment banker (Deutsche Bank) he launched Purple Style labs while living in Mumbai in a 6 BHK with friends, Agarwal has had an eventful life. In Japanese culture “purple” denotes luxury. It seems apt, plus a multi-brand shop reduces the risk of failure when you stock top designers – Amit Aggarwal to Varun Bahl and Tarun Tahiliani.

“I’m a markets guy…trader, banker. I know how to make money, I want to live in India, though most of my batchmates are now minting money in America, I’m spoiled, I can’t do so much housework,” he admits.

His IIT friends had launched fashion brands like Bewakoof (Prabhakaran Singh and Siddharth Munot). In his batch there were 400 companies launched (including Flyrobe, IIT Bombay graduates – Shreya Mishra, Pranay Surana, and Tushar Saxena). I’m guessing it’s their risk-taking ability to do this — and the non-aspiration for making moolah that makes their businesses a success. “My IIT friends are not raking in as much moolah, as Rourkela businessmen who make pots of money,” he giggles.

The luxury arena interested Aggarwal where he observed a fragmented industry, and lack of existence of a fashion hub, Reliance and Birla saw it later, Ravi Thakran of LVMH wanted to do this earlier. This prompted him to start Purple Style Labs (they own Hemant Trivedi, Pernia, bought in 2018, and Wendell Rodericks in 2020). “My friend ran Food Labs; from college I got the ‘labs’ name from him, as Spanish and Russian monikers were unsuitable,” he explains, adding he wanted to call it The Stylist under his own IP, but then Pernia happened; it was losing money, she sold it to PSL.

They wanted Masaba but she got funding from Aditya Birla, in 2015. When Aggarwal began there were no Aza nor many multi-designer stores. “With Pernia I didn’t have to build anything from scratch. Only when she was making losses, payments were late, we had to rebuild the sour relationships,” he adds. Today, there are 16 Pernia’s all over the country and even in Grosvenor St, London.

Aggarwal, though, has a clever mind. In India, there are no Rs 1,000-crore brands. Even Tarun Tahiliani may be a Rs 200-crore company this year, or a Sabyasachi Mukherjee. Is he trying to be an LVMH?

What I think made Aggarwal succeed is cold logic, no emotions, only looking at business angles and how to make a profit. “We changed Pernia’s logo thinking it was terrible, bad for signages. But if Pernia Qureshi would have been part of the company, she would have resisted and probably protested also,” he says, adding he did the same Wendell’s logo (Schulen must be mad, but Jerome Wendell’s partner was ok with it). They acquired Wendell Rodricks’ brand after the Goa-based designer passed away at 59.

“In school, I never listened to teachers, my homework copies were blank. Back home, no one is so well educated as after they turn 18, they join the family business,” he admits. When he began at 25, he took a nominal salary, but ten years from now he says the profit will be Rs 5,000 crores for PSL. Which makes it easier to take giant leaps, as he has zero investments in life — no fancy home, no aspirations for a palace, or to go on Shark Tank.

Though the man with millions has luxe tastes – he was watching Formula 1 in Baku, when a real estate agent offered him the historic Ismail building as Zara was vacating. They already had a store in Kala Ghoda, 7,000 square feet as they knew the potential. But they needed more space, so a lucrative deal was struck. “Arif Fazlani is a passionate guy but we had to convince him for the Ismail Building,” he says.

Aggarwal doesn’t run the daily business, Abhinav and Nivesh do. He’s more the deal maker. “I’m great at cracking deals,” he laughs. “That’s my life”. And if you ask him how he is so good at business – is it genetic, reading or street smartness? He adds, “I have read only a few books in my life — The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton), How to Make a Few Billion Dollars (Brad Jacobs) and The 48 Laws of Power (Robert Greene),” he admits, adding, “I am very lazy. I have a beach home in Mumbai so that I can enjoy the view, but I never sit near the ocean.”

He gets “bored” very fast, and his mind runs at a high RPM. That is why racing is the perfect sport for him, as he likes cities and is not a lover of nature. What was the piece de resistance in our hour-long conversation is — “I don’t do minor jumps in life.” – Asmita is the Lifestyle Editor of NRI Focus. She is an award winning journalist who has been writing on fashion for the last 32 years