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“Every now and then when we do something new, it’s just followed by a bunch of WTFs. The day we stop receiving those reactions, we are going to be dissatisfied with what we’re doing. At every stage it has to be, ‘What the fuck is going on? How are these guys doing this?’ That’s what we want to do to perpetuate this business. It has to constantly be something outrageous, young and dynamic. It just has to be different.”
From the stories behind Anurag Kashyap’s sickest sneakers, to exploring the closets of the country’s biggest hypebeasts and having exclusive sit-downs with upcoming fashion brands and industry OGs; it’s safe to say that India’s burgeoning love affair with street wear and culture has finally found a new and dynamic pit stop: Main Street.
“Overall what we’re trying to do is built a more contemporary front in the fashion sphere. A little younger and a cooler perspective that’s closer to ground, because that’s basically how fashion’s moving right now”, says Vedant Lamba(19), who along with his friends Khush Lulla(20) and Ikram Nagani(20), run Main Street, a multi-faceted creative platform aimed to fuel and nurture streetwear in India by the means of videos, blogs and other digital content, along with a physical Mainstreet Marketplace Store in their home city, Pune.
Initially sparked by their fascination of sneakers, Vedant and Khush were pleasantly taken aback when they earned a profit of 9k each by re-selling a pair of Yeezy V2 Zebra. This gave them a sense of the possible business prospects in this field, and they went on to dream of starting a retail sneaker store. Eventually, reality illuminated a bunch of socio-economic roadblocks, especially for a bunch of teenagers. However, they were adamant on starting a venture intertwined with street culture, so they decided to set up and work on two of their primary verticals : education and curation. By educating people via their content, they wanted to entice them about the culture. This would help them set-up a viable non-profit platform for people to have access to various products at market prices, which eventually snowballed into The Mainstreet Marketplace Store. “India’s first physical store for trading these commodities”, says Khush.
On the blog handled by Ikram, you can find a varied spectrum of articles ranging from updates on new releases to artist collaborations. The YouTube page on the other hand has a fantastic selection of videos comprising of event behind-the-scenes, store and closet tours and captivating conversations around the culture with the likes of Anand Ahuja, Abhineet Singh and more. The online rendition of The Mainstreet Marketplace store contains a diverse selection of sneaker and streetwear accessories and products from both international and Indian brands.
It couldn’t be a better time to establish a platform surrounding streetwear. With events like HGStreet, stores like Veg-NonVeg, and clothing brands like Strey and Almost Gods finding real footing, it’s no question that street culture is here to stay and to flourish. “There is a sustained wave in the west which has made its way here. We want to be dynamic and cover fashion as a whole. Streetwear is in right now and we are here to capitalize on that and help it grow”, says Ikram. As fans and consumers themselves, the boys would like to see more innovation by Indian brands. With regards to the culture as a whole, they’d love to see campouts, re-selling and limited addition drops of products by an Indian brand. Even though the culture is on a back foot with regards to the kind of financial implications of long term sustainability, they are very contented and optimistic of how the movement is progressing.
“Our top priority is to maintain a cool brand value”, says Vedant. With a postive response to their actions and a gaining momentum of their various ventures, the Mainstreet team is more than excited to put out more quality content and push the still nascent culture even further. So if you’re ever lost on what’s hot in streetwear, Mainstreet is the path to take.
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