Monday High Lifestyle

A deep dive into Virat Kohli’s fashion brand WROGN — its rise, struggles, financial story, and what lies ahead. Can WROGN reinvent itself? When Virat Kohli launched WROGN back in 2014 with Universal Sportsbiz Pvt. Ltd. (USPL), the formula looked unbeatable: India’s most bankable sports star + trendy casualwear + strong distribution on Myntra and brand stores. For a while, it worked brilliantly. Kohli’s swagger matched the street-casual positioning, and young India lined up for tees, denims, and jackets with the WROGN label. But a decade later, the story looks different. Despite massive awareness, WROGN is wobbling. Losses have widened (₹75 crore in FY25 vs. ₹57 crore in FY24), and the brand faces sharper competition from both homegrown challengers and global giants. So what went wrong—and what could still go right? Why WROGN Is Struggling 1. Celebrity over product Kohli’s face gave the brand recognition, but the clothes themselves rarely stood apart. Competing brands like Snitch and Ra...

Introduction: From Swiss Alps to Global Streets Few brands in sportswear have gone from zero to global name recognition as quickly as On . What started in Zürich in 2010 as a radical idea by a former triathlete is now a billion-dollar performance-lifestyle powerhouse, loved by marathoners, fashion editors, and Gen-Z commuters alike. The journey hasn’t been easy. It’s a story of design audacity, smart partnerships, selective marketing, and calculated risks. More than just another sneaker company, On has reshaped what it means to combine performance engineering with style and cultural relevance. This is the On story — how it started, where it struggled, how it grew, and why its design philosophy makes it one of the most fascinating sports brands of our time.   1. The Spark: Olivier Bernhard’s Frustration The story begins with Olivier Bernhard , a Swiss professional triathlete and Ironman competitor. Like most elite athletes, Bernhard was obsessive about gear. Shoes were...

Liberty Shoes is one of the most fascinating stories in Indian footwear. It blends entrepreneurial grit, brand building, family business dynamics, and adaptation to changing market forces. Below is a look into how it started, the struggles, its market placement, some interesting facts & learnings, current revenue & future plans. How It Started Founders & the early vision Liberty was founded in 1954 in Karnal, Haryana, by Dharam Pal Gupta, Purshotam Das Gupta, and Rajkumar Bansal. Originally, it was a small shop (then known as Pal Boot House ) that produced just four pairs of shoes a day with local cobblers. The goal was more than commerce—it was about “liberating Indians from dependence on foreign footwear”. Evolution of operations From the small shop, they gradually scaled up. In the 1960s, they began exporting; one early breakthrough was exporting to Russia and Hungary. In 1982, they set up a factory focused on the domestic footwear market. Over time, they ...

What do icy German football fields, UK terrace culture, New York skate spots, and Paris runways have in common? A single sneaker that threaded them all together: the Adidas Samba . Born as a problem-solving boot for winter training, the Samba has spent more than seven decades effortlessly switching codes—sport, subculture, and luxury—while staying unmistakably itself. This is the story of how a utility shoe became a global symbol, the strategy that kept it relevant, and the numbers behind the phenomenon. 1) Origins: A Shoe Built for Ice—Not for “Samba” Dancing Designed in 1949 by Adolf “Adi” Dassler to help footballers train on icy grounds, the Samba’s gum outsole with suction-style cut-outs gripped frost like nothing before. The pragmatic DNA—low-profile leather upper, sticky gum sole, agile feel—has stayed intact through every iteration. Suggested visual: Vintage Samba vs modern Samba OG split image captioned “Engineered for frozen pitches; adopted by the world.” 2) Fro...