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Rumana Chowdhury: Designing Dreams into Life

Founded in 2008 and named after her son, Warah is a dream taking the form of a boutique by designer Rumana Chowdhury. Persa Sanjana Hussain traces the woman behind this.

Rumana Chowdhury

Married at the age of 20 and having a son by the age of 21, this woman, who is the owner and designer of the well-established boutique name Warah, didn’t let any of the two hinder her journey towards chasing her fire. Rumana Chowdhury completed her graduation just when her son started his school. Amidst the rush of all the happening, the fact that none of her family members belonged to the business background only made it harder for her. “I started small at my home and that is from where it grew.”

Being a stylish young lady, Rumana always dressed with careful attention to details and ongoing trends. Her friends always appreciated her fashion sense and eventually convinced her to make a career out of her talent. “When I had clients coming in I lived in Dhanmondi and it was very difficult for some of them to reach there, so I set out with the fresh hopes of wanting to start a store.” Without taking help from anyone, Rumana relied on herself to open her own store. “getting a loan was immensely difficult, but I didn’t want to pressurize my family either. I took the leap of faith and the rest followed.”

Still, at a young age, Rumana had to face bigger problems than girls of her age. Besides managing her family, she had to deal with problems facing her business on a daily business. “A problem showed up every now and then. There were restrictions from the government, there were problems on the part of the land-owner and so on.” The challenges continue as she was once forced to relocate within just five years. She moved to a much smaller store which could barely contain, let alone display her designed pieces properly. Just when she settled within two years the Holey Artisan Tragedy brought in a new wave of difficulties. The government forced her to shut Warah down while there was countless order pending.
Once again, relentless in the face of challenges Rumana started looking for space as soon as she could. She says, “I couldn’t let my clients down. They were expecting from me to deliver.” She soon got a small space to continue operations and looked for a bigger space meanwhile. She still feels that 2014-2018 had the roughest patches but she takes pride in sustaining through it.

She shares, “Women are always under control and don’t get the chance to experience freedom in its truest sense. First, you must think about whether your parents will allow you to do something and then after marriage, it is your husband and in-laws. As a woman, you naturally have an instinct to keep them happy.” She says that she did try, in her own capacity, to keep her loved ones happy but with age, she realized the importance of placing her happiness first. “You’ll not get supportive people all the time. At the time close people can’t offer to help because they are busy. But you need to know how to do it for yourself and the sooner you realize that it isn’t possible for you to keep everyone happy the better.”

At the outset, her parents weren’t particularly fond of her wanting to be a designer, now whenever someone shares her work or appreciate it they are the ones who take more pride in it. She adds, “You need to compartmentalize your feelings. You cannot give up on your dreams or even give up on your loved ones just because they don’t see things the way you do.”
On talking about her success Rumana shares that her curiosity for learning helped her a great deal. “Whenever I see anyone do something wonderful, I always ask them to teach me how to do it and I research about it. I believe learning is better when you are active and curious as opposed to passive knowledge just, which is imposed on you,” says the designer to put things into perspective.

Rumana says that her son is the most important part of her life and even though she loves her work she looks forward to going home to spend quality time with her son every day. “Motherhood s a lovely feeling. Perhaps when my son was born, I was too young to understand this but to make up for that I want to spend more and more time with him as he grows up. It is blissful to hear about his opinions or even watch him play the ps4.” She claims that her son is no less than a best friend to her and that he particularly has been extremely mature and supportive with her career. “My son is just 14, but he is different-he is incredibly smart and mature for his age. We often have healthy debates and I enjoy discussing different issues with him.”

The designer has always been stubborn in nature and that is what gave her the energy to persist through the many challenges that she faced throughout building her brands as one of the most known ones. “I have learned through my mistakes, I knew nothing when I started but I gradually improvised to bring Warah where it is today. Now that I have worked with quite a few cover pages, several projects and people from the industry it is safe to say that I have already achieved way more than I expected.” She started in 2010 and won an award at Dhaka Fashion Week within just a year in 2011.

Reflecting back on her work Rumana says, “I actually appreciate the tough time a lot now. They made me grow as a person. They showed me that I am actually much braver than I deemed myself to be and that is a beautiful feeling.” She says that building a signature style took her five years to understand and establish. Now people recognize Warah for its off-white designs and distinguishable moisturized-cotton fabric and that is when she feels her success manifest. That gives her fulfillment. “As a designer, more than people recognizing me I want them to recognize my brand and appreciate my designs.”
Rumana worked hard to make off-white khadi fabric and block prints wearable at more occasions than work. She worked to make people comfortable with wearing those designs at parties and look at them from a fresh new perspective. Till date, she looks to other art forms for inspiration and loves traveling to bring forth the creativity to make masterpieces loved by customers.

She concludes by saying that besides her work reaching bigger scales she looks forward to seeing her son grow up. “I am excited to see what happens. He wants to be a corporate lawyer and I can’t wait to see that happen. In fact, I am also eager to see my daughter-in-law, who knows maybe she can handle this business when I am ready to retire.”

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