Why does Jackie Shroff approve of this Pune fashion brand that revamps your old denim jeans and jackets into new, edgy pieces?

Throw open the doors of your wardrobe and bend. 

Bend some more, and look at the bottom-most shelf, please.

Anywhere between two to four denim jeans, jackets, and shirts of yours would be lying around, bundled up, ignored, but not forgotten.

These carry memories, maybe of the summer of 2021, and you’ve never had the heart to throw them away, right?

“These are the exact kind of people we wish to cater to. Almost everyone in our generation has an old jacket quietly rotting away in their wardrobe. What we want is to take it, customize it into something fresh, and send it back to the person. The result? Old memories that look new. Old denim that can be worn again with statement, style, and just the kind of fashion you subscribe to today,” Riya Chauhan, co-founder of Rawri, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Founded in 2025 and based in Pune, Rawri is a denim-forward fashion brand that not only creates but also revamps and customizes denim apparel for its customers. 

The brand was launched in August 2025 and has seen positive traction recently. 

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THE BACKGROUND

Hailing from Pune, Riya Chauhan (23) studied fashion from a college in Pune. Here, she became friends with Sahil Hotwani, who was pursuing a degree in automobile and transport design.

“Both of us noticed an entrepreneurial streak in each other. I think Riya saw that I am Sindhi and that business comes naturally to me,” Sahil Hotwani laughs.

In 2023, Riya joined Jaywalking, a streetwear fashion house, and was onboarded to manage its operations, including hiring and sourcing.

Around the same time, Sahil (who hails from Kota in Rajasthan and is 23 years old) joined a corporate job where he became responsible for a brand’s design software.

“By the end of 2024, I was sure of one thing: I was not built for doing a full-time job, so I quit it. Creating was something that I enjoyed thoroughly and wanted to pursue something in that direction. Working at the fashion brand taught me a lot as well. I had an inclination towards making stuff out of denim for many years, and somehow knew that this was my calling,” small business founder Riya Chauhan tells Startup Pedia.

“I, on the other hand, have been into brands ever since I can remember. I always dreamt of building my own brand and taking it to people. Riya and I have already been in alignment since college. We now finally solidified our ideas and decided to start a fashion brand together,” entrepreneur Sahil Hotwani says.

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THE WHY AND HOW OF A DENIM-FORWARD BRAND

Since the beginning, Sahil Hotwani and Riya Chauhan were clear on one thing: they didn’t want to start “just another fashion brand.”

It had to have meaning, and it had to have a purpose.

“We did our research and could see that the Indian market had become saturated. There was something for everybody. But revamping was one area that wasn’t really explored much. For instance, you’ll see a lot of fashion brands that recycle your fabrics but you never really know what percentage was actually recycled and what percentage ended up in a landfill,” Sahil Hotwani mentions.

The entrepreneur duo decided to start Rawri as a denim-forward fashion brand that could offer both to customers – revamped, art-heavy clothes made out of their old denims, and fresh, exciting denim wear pieces.

JOURNEY AND CHALLENGES

Riya Chauhan and Sahil Hotwani pooled Rs 4.5 lakh to bootstrap Rawri.

This amount went to sourcing new denims, paying a new tailor, and getting the required machines and infrastructure to start revamping and building denim wear.

“We are utilizing Riya’s father’s space in Pune for now, so we are saving on rent there,” Sahil mentions.

From March 2025 to August 2025, there were multiple challenges that the small business founders went through:

1. The idea of revamping old denim clothes was intriguing to every single person they reached out to. However, the conversation just wouldn’t move forward from there.

“We are a very new brand, and establishing trust in the fashion space is something that is very important. Naturally, converting leads into paying customers was a bit of an obstacle,” entrepreneur Riya Chauhan says.

2. Then, getting in touch with quality vendors for customized batches of accessories like buttons and trims was a whole different ballgame. The young entrepreneurs did not have the resources to commit to larger orders and had to convince vendors to give them smaller quantities.

“For this, we travelled across different cities in India. As a fashion brand, we wanted to build long-term relationships with quality vendors. A lot of time, reasonably, went into that,” Sahil Hotwani explains.

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THE MARKETING TRAJECTORY OF RAWRI

Sahil Hotwani and Riya Chauhan, being young entrepreneurs, know exactly what their Gen Z audience wants: social proof, credibility, and an Instagram following.

“We have been working very hard on our Instagram page. Shooting behind-the-scenes footage, taking viewers through the process of revamping old denims, and showing them actual outcomes – it is all part of our well-curated Instagram strategy,” small business founder Sahil shares with Startup Pedia.

Currently, Sahil and Riya shoot, edit, and produce the content for their brand page themselves. No external support. No content agency.

The entrepreneur duo also tried Meta ads, but didn’t have substantial success with them.

As for offline marketing, at the beginning of October, they conducted their first pop-up stall at a Bollywood music project concert in BKC, Mumbai.

“We were surprised to see the kind of response we received. Something that was called “price-heavy” in other smaller cities was suddenly appreciated and called “reasonable” in Mumbai. People got the physical experience of our revamped denim and our fresh collection as well. It was great,” Riya smiles.

Then came Bollywood actor Jackie Shroff.

Riya’s father, who works in automobile designing, introduced her to Shroff during one of his meetings.

“Dad told me in advance that he would be meeting Jackie sir for work. So Sahil and I got together to make a custom jacket for him. When I met him, it was superb. He loved the jacket and told me he would wear it during one of his ad shoots. Jackie sir only wears denim or linen. Nothing in between,” small business founder Riya shares.

Currently, Rawri has an Instagram following of more than 2,000 people. The small business founders have seen an increase in daily enquiries, from just 2 to 3 per day, to now 8 to 9 interested individuals and fashion enthusiasts.

RAWRI: INDIA’S FIRST BRAND TO REVAMP OLD DENIMS

Rawri’s mission statement is simple: it wants to revive your old memories while keeping your denim intact and art-heavy.

The denim-forward fashion brand has two arms:

1. Rawri Revamp

2. Rawri Originals

Under Rawri Revamp, the fashion brand creatively upcycles old denim pieces sent by customers into a brand-new, one-of-a-kind fashion piece.

“It is made to order and entirely customized according to what our customers want. For instance, Rehan from Delhi sends us two pairs of his old denim jeans which he wants converted into denim shorts. We speak to him, understand his requirements and sense of style, and throw in our own dash of creativity. The result? Fresh pairs of denim shorts that Rehan can now wear. The denim remains the same, of course. We just revamp it,” Sahil Hotwani explains.

The prices for the revamped products are slightly lower than those of the clothes in the Rawri Originals’ collection.

“We are open to negotiations here. Mainly because we know how important and sensitive old denims are for people. To be even thinking of upcycling them is a decision people take with a lot of thought, so we want no friction there,” Riya says.

To date, the highest that a denim apparel has been sold under Revamp Rawri is Rs 4,500.

“The lowest being Rs 2,500,” Riya adds.

Then, under Rawri Originals, the Pune-based fashion brand sells a curated range of jackets, skirts, pants, and more. Each piece is crafted to be bold, wearable art, merging premium tailoring with edgy and experimental design. The prices start from Rs 2,700 and go up to approximately Rs 9,000.

For the small business founders, sustainability is a key ethos at Rawri.

Currently, the split between Rawri Revamp and Rawri Originals is equal.

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THE UNIT ECONOMICS

When asked about the unit economics of their fashion brand, founders Riya Chauhan and Sahil Hotwani explain:

With an average order value of approximately Rs 4,500 to Rs 5,000,

• Rs 800 to Rs 1000 goes into the material cost

• Rs 500 to Rs 600 goes into the in-house tailoring cost

• Rs 400 to 600 is taken up in machinery and set-up costs

• Another Rs 200 goes into the customized buttons and tote bags, chains, and tags that Rawri sends its orders with

• The remainder is the profit that the founders are currently reinvesting

RAWRI’S INTERNATIONAL ASPIRATIONS

On the personal front, Riya Chauhan and Sahil Hotwani are living extremely busy lives.

When asked about their daily schedules, Sahil mentions being in front of two monitors all day long: one, where he attends to his corporate job, and the second, where he handles all things operations and execution at Rawri.

As for Riya, she constantly works on design, ideation, content, and coordination with their ‘masterji (tailor)’ throughout the day.

With a rise in weekly orders, the founders are currently preparing for their second offline pop-up stall in Ahmedabad in December 2025.

The young entrepreneurs have no Plan B and want to take Rawri beyond India by 2026-27.

“We want to do this for us, for our parents, and for the fashion community that is slowly yet steadily seeing our purpose behind revamping denim. Rawri is set to become a brand synonymous with sustainability, but not the boring kind. It is art, it is modern, and most of all, it is a statement,”Riya Chauhan signs off.

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