SHAHI EXPORTS PVT LTD · B2B FASHION · 2020
I had no UX brief.
No budget. No timeline.
Just a billion-dollar business going silent.
When COVID shut every showroom overnight, I didn't wait for someone to assign me a project. I was a fashion designer who understood how buyers think and I used that to build something no one had asked for, and no one had built before in India.
Team
2 Fashion Designers
1 Developer
Role
Fashion Designer
UX/UI Designer
Product Thinking
UXR
Responsibilities
User Research
Rapid Prototyping & Ideation
Image Editing &
Visualization
Product Development &
Execution (0→1)
Cross funtional Collaboration
Tools
WIX
Figma
HTML
CSS
Photoshop
Illustrator
Timeline
April-
May 20
Overview
When COVID halted travel and showrooms Shahi Exports faced a major disruption.
To keep business moving, I designed TrendRack, a digital buying experience that allowed global buyers to explore collections, assess fabrics, and curate selections remotely.
The platform enabled $7M in remote sales during the pandemic and redefined how fashion buying could happen online.
About the company
Shahi Exports is India’s largest apparel manufacturer and one of Asia’s biggest exporters, supplying global brands like Marks & Spencer, Walmart, Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, Kohl’s, JCPenney, American Eagle, Ralph Lauren, Columbia Sportswear, H&M, Zara, Target, PVH, Anthropologie and many more.
With a business worth over $1B annually, Shahi is the backbone of the global fashion supply chain.
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What I did?
At Shahi, I designed collections for global brands like Marks & Spencer, Anthropologie, Zara, and Walmart.
When COVID shut our showrooms, I identified an opportunity and collaborated with multiple cross funcational teams to reimagine fashion buying digitally turning my eye for drape and fit into a UI/UX solution.
That moment reframed design for me from fashion to UI/UX.
That’s me! With my production designs
The Crisis
COVID hit. Buyers couldn’t travel. Factories went silent overnight.
When fashion is built on touch and suddenly no one can touch what happens to a billion-dollar business?
The Challenge
Showroom image for reference
When the pandemic hit, in-person buyer visits stopped overnight. Our traditional showroom model broke — buyers couldn’t feel fabrics, see drape, or visualise collections. We needed to maintain engagement without physical access.
Our challenge was clear: design a digital experience that could rebuild buyer confidence and keep business alive remotely.
The Opportunity
This presented a unique opportunity:
To build India's first digital buying experience “TrendRack”
keeping creativity and business alive from behind a screen.
The Design Journey
Digital Model vs Mannequin
#Decision 1
Problem:
Traditional mannequins gave a static, impersonal view of the garment; no sense of fit, movement, or relatability. In a digital setting, that felt even more distant.
Real drape & tension
One of a kind garment representation in the industry
Styling context
Flat, technical documentation view
Design Solution:
Instead of photographing garments on mannequins, I composited them onto digital model images to simulate real drape and body proportion.
How did I make them?
Before AI emergence
Draped +80 garments; In 160 hours
Rack Curation
#Decision 2
Problem:
In physical showrooms, buyers walk through racks, mix and match styles, and pull out pieces they like.
That behavior helps them visualize their product line how silhouettes, prints, and color stories work together.
Before
After
Giving buyers the space to create collections (like they used to do in meetings)
Design Solution:
I recreated that rack experience through an Add to Rack feature: a visual shortlisting system where buyers could “pull” digital garments, curate their selections, and review them together
Information Architecture
#Decision 3
Problem:
Our task was to organize 200+ styles in a way that matched how buyers actually think and shop during selection meetings.
Explore
By Categories
By Trends
By Season
Garment pictures
Fabric Zoom
Fabric/ Cost details
Add to rack
Comments from buyer
Product page
Selections (Your Rack)
PS: Turns out, “make it make sense” is a pretty solid UX strategy.
Design Solution:
I standardised the information layout across all product pages, keeping key details like fabric, fit, feel, and ideal season in the same order and position.
Technical data such as wash, weave count, and SAM were moved to a secondary layer, maintaining completeness without distraction.
Outcome
Business from M&S
during 2020
$7M
Dresses business
increased
20%
Buyers onboarded
4+
Testimonials
“TrendRack helped us keep the buying cycle alive when we had no way to travel, it was an impressive, forward-thinking initiative.”
- Lead Buyer, Marks & Spencer (excerpt from letter of recommendation)
“Her contributions have been appreciated by the buying office as well as the Design VP in London. She’s brought TrendRack to life in garment ranges with clear impact. ”
- Design Direction, Shahi Exports Pvt Ltd (excerpt from letter of recommendation)
Key Takeways
This project taught me that design isn’t a discipline: it’s a mindset.
I hadn’t heard of UI/UX then, but I knew how to solve a problem that mattered.