“You feel good when you shop,” says Mridula Pai, the founder of the thrift label Love Me Twice, the first branch of which opened in Kolkata in 2020. She has recently opened Love Me Twice’s second shop in Bengaluru at the Paper Boat Collective (PBC), a retail space with environmental consciousness, ethics and mindful production at its core.
Creating a pleasant shopping experience, unlike a rummage through a thrift bin, is key to the brand; Mridula firmly believes that this is absolutely essential for thrift to become mainstream. “We are competing with normal labels, so things like music, how a shop smells, looks… all of it is important,” says Mridula. “We have all sorts of labels, but the aesthetic value drives the curation,” she says.
The new Love Me Twice store, nestled in the basement of a charming, tree-flanked bungalow in Indiranagar, reflects her viewpoint. The store is filled with racks of freshly-pressed clothes, a shelf dedicated to beautifully displayed luxury products as well as a range of bags, jewellery, and shoes, while soothing music plays in the background. “Thrifting must be the whole package, or we won’t stand a chance of it becoming normal,” she says.
The Love Me Twice store is one of the several new offerings at PBC, launched in the city to mark the store’s pivot to a new format: creating a mall-like version of sustainable brands.
Bhagyashree Patwardhan, the founder and creative director of PBC, explains its rationale. “When I started Paper Boat Collective 11 years ago (in Goa), I told myself that I would not do anything that did not fit in my conscience,” says Bhagyashree, who chose to fill her store with handmade products made with natural materials sourced from small-scale businesses and people working with artisans within the country. “We have always tried to be as sustainable, organic and zero waste, as possible, and have maintained that value system,” she says.
While this ethos continues, she also realised that unlike the leisurely vibe of Goa, a city’s energy is somewhat different. “People are in a hurry. I have also realised that if they are making the trek, they would like to have multiple offerings,” says Bhagyashree, who believes that this new shop-in-shop model, where multiple brands with a similar value system are grouped together, works well. “The aesthetic sensibility, offering and temperament must be the same,” she adds.
Besides PBC and Love Me Twice, three other brands are housed in the same space. These include a plant-based cafe, Copper + Cloves, which has been around since 2022, as well as bespoke cosmetic brand Tinge, which offers cruelty-free, vegan makeup, and No Nasties, a fair-trade certified apparel brand, working with factories that ensure no child labour and no forced exploitation of workers.
Apurva Kothari, the founder of No Nasties, says that this is the brand’s third physical store, with the first two being in Goa. “While obviously, our reach is bigger online, it is such a different experience to have a physical store, both for customers and for us,” he says, pointing out that as a purpose-driven brand, having face-to-face conversations with customers is amazing. Kothari, adds “We have always been a slow, conscious brand that focusses on maximising what we can give back to the community.”
