Your Losses Are Your Biggest Strength: Anam Mirza, Founder, The Label Bazaar

“I am fortunate enough that I could turn something that I love into my career.”

The bubbly fashion enthusiast and the founder of The Label Bazaar, Anam Mirza exuberates immense gratitude as she shares her journey with Feministaa on becoming a successful fashion entrepreneur.

Anam was born into a family of sports enthusiasts and had spent a good portion of her early life on basketball courts and shooting ranges. But one day, she realised that she had stopped enjoying what she was doing, and thus began the quest of finding her true calling.

“In my family, no matter what we are doing, we are told to enjoy it. While I was doing pistol shooting, I realised one day that I am no longer enjoying it and my family supported me.”

Anam soon began experimenting with her entrepreneurial ideas. She says that she started and scrapped at least three businesses – including a web portal, before she managed to curate The Label Bazaar, a little more than three years ago. Her exceptional style has transformed her successful entrepreneurial venture into the brand loved and admired by fashion enthusiasts. She found her strength to deal with the failures from the discipline she attained while playing sports.

“When you play a sport, it makes you used to losses. I am used to losing and learning from these losses. I have brought that (spirit) in my business as well.”

Today, she has successfully organised eleven seasons under The Label Bazaar and is looking forward to expanding it across international borders as well. In fact, she recently organised a show in Dubai. The world is digital and so is fashion that stems from The Label Bazaar. Their Instagram account is a digital delight for the internet. Anam’s Instagram handle is also a telltale of her rendezvous with fashion in everyday life.

Elaborating more on her decision to start The Label Bazaar, Anam shares that as a young girl she loved dressing up and revered fashion and enjoys doing it. So, why didn’t she choose to become a fashion designer?

To this, Anam says, “I never studied fashion. I studied journalism and business and I believe that it takes a lot more than just studying business to be (a good) fashion designer. Because I couldn’t do fashion designing, then the next best thing to do was to curate fashion and that’s always been my inspiration. Hence I started The Label Bazaar.”

She is a leading female entrepreneur who strongly feels about the need for women to become financially independent, as well.

“It is very important for a woman to be self-sufficient. Once a woman is self-sufficient, there are a lot of things that will stop in society, whether it’s women being suppressed or being in toxic relationships.”

Therefore she wants to encourage all aspiring women entrepreneurs to take risks. “If your idea is out-of-the-box, you shouldn’t think if it is going to work out or not. Because if it works out, your life is going to be great; if it doesn’t. It’s going to be the greatest lesson to start something else in your life.”

Anam realises that many people don’t get as lucky as she has been in being able to follow their passion and do what they love. Being one of the most celebrated female entrepreneurs in the fashion industry, she has etched a name for herself and The Label Bazaar as the most sought after brands. Anam’s tryst with fashion and a successful business venture has ranked her in the list of pioneer female entrepreneurs in India.