From Pop Culture Tees to AI-Driven Drops, India’s Fast Fashion Gets Smarter

The fast fashion industry churns out clothes at a pace that’s hard to keep up with, even for the most dedicated shoppers. The aim? To get these trendy designs into wardrobes while they’re still hot, and at prices that seem too good to be true. 

And while globally this narrative is largely shaped by the bigger players who have a strong foothold, India’s fast fashion story is not being written by these behemoths alone, keeping pace with global fashion, both home-grown and global brands are rewriting the rules to fit India’s unique consumer landscape.

Along with the incumbents, Indian challengers are scaling quickly, propelled by a sharper understanding of local tastes and a nimbleness global names sometimes lack. The Souled Store has transformed pop-culture fandom into a full-fledged fashion business, building a loyal base with licensed merchandise that is priced and styled for the domestic market.

Snitch, in the menswear lane, has turned its weekly drop cycle into a customer-acquisition engine, moving at the “speed of culture” without the excess inventory that has long dogged the sector. Then there’s Urbanic -not a homegrown player, but one that behaves like it is. Founded overseas, it has crafted an India-first, online-only model that leans heavily on AI-driven supply chains, social listening, and micro-batch production. It has captured a devoted Gen Z audience without opening a single store, proving that physical retail isn’t the only route to scale in this market.

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A Market Built for Speed

The numbers tell the story. India’s fast fashion segment is pegged at $13.48 billion in 2025 and is projected to triple to $39.74 billion by 2032, a CAGR of 16.7% (Coherent Market Insights, 2025). That outpaces the broader apparel sector, which is expected to grow at 10–12% a year to reach $130–150 billion by 2030 (OC&C Strategy Consultants, 2024).

Branded apparel, a category that includes both the global powerhouses and the homegrown disruptors, is already expanding more than twice as fast as unbranded clothing. That means the competitive field is widening, not narrowing. And with India’s textile and apparel industry valued at $160 billion, contributing 2.3% of GDP and employing 45 million people directly (KPMG, 2025), the manufacturing backbone is in place to support that acceleration.

Rising disposable incomes, deeper e-commerce penetration, and the opening of Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets as serious consumption hubs have made the country one of the most promising growth frontiers for fast fashion anywhere.

Spotting the Gaps

For Chetan Siyal, Founding Member and CMO of Snitch, the opportunity was hiding in plain sight. “The Indian men’s fashion market was dominated by either slow-moving traditional retail or global fast fashion that did not speak to the Indian male in terms of fit, pricing, and cultural relevance,” he says. The pivot from a B2B manufacturer to a D2C label during COVID proved to be the inflection point, unlocking a Rs 100 crore revenue run rate in under three years.

While Co-Founder of The Souled Store, Vedang Patel, saw an entirely different gap-licensed pop culture merchandise that was either unavailable or overpriced. “We wanted to create a homegrown brand that celebrated fandoms while being accessible and stylish,” he recalls. 

For Rahul Dayama, founding partner of Urbanic and Savana, the missing link was a tech-enabled, trend-forward platform capable of delivering global styles at prices palatable to India’s young, style-conscious audience. “The market either offered slow supply chains with dated designs or global labels at a price premium,” he says.

Speed Without the Waste

Fast fashion is notorious for churning out products faster than the market can absorb, but these brands are rewriting that script.

All three founders agree—intuition has its place, but data is the decisive edge.

Urbanic’s design-to-shelf cycles are informed by social listening. “We track conversations, hashtags, and emerging aesthetics to spot trends before they peak,” Dayama says. This keeps the brand ahead of micro-trends without overcommitting inventory.

While at Snitch, the weekly drop cadence is anchored by real-time analytics, letting the team adapt designs and quantities almost instantly. The Souled Store builds its community into the forecasting loop. Relying heavily on customer insights to forecast demand and plan inventory, the feedback cycle between content, community, and commerce gives the brand a sharper read on what will sell and when.

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“Our philosophy is ‘fast, but not wasteful,’” says Siyal, whose team produces in smaller, smarter batches guided by real-time demand data. Over 70% of Snitch’s fabrics come from certified, environmentally compliant suppliers, ensuring speed doesn’t mean reckless overproduction.

Urbanic runs a similar playbook with micro-batch production. “Each SKU starts in low quantities, and scaling happens only based on real-time sell-through rates,” Dayama says. “Speed doesn’t have to mean waste, we work closely with manufacturing partners to optimise fabric usage and reduce excess materials.”

For The Souled Store, the solution lies in vertical integration and strict demand planning. “We launch limited quantities and restock based on real-time data,” Patel explains. “This minimises overproduction and keeps us agile without compromising on quality or ethics.”

The Inventory Tightrope

Patel admits the biggest challenge is “striking a balance between speed and accuracy” when predicting winners. Limited-edition drops allow The Souled Store to test styles in small batches, scaling only those that resonate.

Snitch takes a “test–scale–retire” approach. “Launch in limited quantities, double down on styles that hit sell-through benchmarks, and retire those that don’t,” says Siyal. The model hinges on tight vendor relationships and in-house sampling to keep lead times short.

Urbanic leans heavily on AI. “Our biggest challenge is balancing trend agility with operational discipline, particularly for Gen Z, which demands rapid style turnover without compromising uniqueness,” Dayama says. Algorithmic replenishment ensures only high-performing pieces get scaled, while the rest vanish before they can gather dust.

Offline as the New Growth Engine

While each began as a digital-first disruptor, the move into physical retail has been deliberate.

Patel notes that in India, “touch-and-feel still matters.” The Souled Store’s outlets double as brand immersion spaces, particularly effective in Tier 2 and 3 cities where online penetration is growing but far from saturated.

For Snitch, the pull came directly from customers. “Men wanted to try, feel, and experience Snitch in person,” Siyal says. Physical stores also capture underserved demand in smaller cities, where premium global labels are often absent. It sees brick-and-mortar as “style destinations,” not just points of sale, with plans to scale to 100 stores by the end of this year and 300 next year, with a significant share in Tier 2/3 cities.

Can the Market Hold Multiple Giants?

Despite aggressive growth, none of the founders believe this is a zero-sum game.

“The market is absolutely big enough for multiple scaled players,” Siyal says, though he predicts consolidation among brands that can’t balance speed, quality, and brand loyalty. 

Dayama agrees, “This isn’t a ‘winner takes it all’ space, you’ll rarely find someone with only one brand in their wardrobe.”

Patel sees the space as still “in its early stages, with massive headroom for growth given the young, trend-conscious population and rising disposable incomes.”

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The Endgames

While each founder frames success differently, the ambitions are uniformly large.

For The Souled Store, Patel says, “The endgame is to become India’s most loved youth fashion and pop culture brand, a homegrown alternative to global giants, built on creativity, community, and conscious commerce.”

Siyal’s target is to redefine Indian menswear globally. “We are building a hybrid model that blends online scale, offline experience, and design agility, making us the go-to brand for the modern Indian man, wherever he is.”

Urbanic’s horizon is intentionally fluid. “There is no definitive endgame. Our focus is to be the most loved and trusted fashion brand in emerging markets, blending tech-led agility with a community-first approach,” says Dayama.

In an industry often accused of valuing speed over sense, these founders are betting that India’s fast fashion future will be built on sharper forecasting, leaner production, and deeper cultural fit. And if their playbooks hold, the next big wave in Indian retail might not just be fast but also be smarter.

If the last few years were about proving that fast fashion could be smarter, the next few are about proving it can scale. While over the past 12–18 months, Snitch has experienced significant expansion across all key metrics. Store count grew from 12 to 73 outlets as of August 2025. Revenue doubled year-on-year, while the customer base expanded from 1 million to 2.2 million. The Souled Store, today has 57 physical stores across India, strengthening its offline footprint alongside its strong online presence.