Shahna Garg - Dbar

I met Shahna for coffee in Defence Colony in South Delhi. (More evidence of Delhi’s love of coffee!) Shahna is a designer – educated in and trained in New York, she started her own studio in Delhi 2 years ago. She’s doing well, but like the guys at Quicksand, she finds there’s a misunderstanding of the potential of design at the moment. One of the most resonant themes I’ve noticed from all the entrepreneurs established and start-up, is that Indian businesses are reluctant to pay for strategy and planning, they want to pay for execution only… not that different to the model we’ve been working to in the UK for years.

What was interesting talking to Shahna, as a practitioner turned business owner, like myself and Simon, was the challenges of growth, training, recruiting and trying to do everything all at once. I mentioned that I don’t think I could do it without a partner, to which she said she’d like one, but she hasn’t met anyone with the same ethos and international expertise as herself with which to share the load.

One of the things I found most compelling about Shahna, is despite her frustration that there is no networking organisation or in her eyes, good training schools for designers, is that she is looking to the future to actually fill those gaps herself. This ‘can do’, ‘if it doesn’t exist, I’ll create it’ attitude is something common that all the people I’ve met have been like, they’re not looking for anyone else to solve their problems, but trying to find a way of solving them themselves to protect their vision and expertise.