Serendipity brought Paridhi Diwan to Meesho in April this year. Paridhi, a graduate of Fashion & Apparel Design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) Mumbai and a postgraduate of New Media Design from the National Institute of Design, is working on a personal project very close to her heart. She is building an online repository themed around “women and their condition under patriarchy in India”. And while her project looks at women and their lack of agency in society, joining Meesho made her realise that this was the perfect place for her to make an impact and help women achieve financial independence — which is often a precursor to personal freedom. Making resellers successful at Meesho (our core value) is something that resonates deeply with Paridhi. At Meesho, Paridhi is bringing her design aesthetic and passion for technology together to create a wonderful product.
And when she isn’t working, Paridhi is a voracious reader, is learning to strum the guitar and loves to dabble in data visualisation such as creative coding — using code to build art works.
Let’s hear it from Paridhi on how she is straddling the world of design and technology at Meesho.
I belong to a family of doctors and engineers mostly. Being the only designer in my family is a bit of an anomaly you could say. But I have been obsessed with design for as long as I can remember. While growing up, I learnt a lot of crafts and embroidery from my mother and remember being fascinated by it all. Since my father belonged to a family of doctors and he himself was an engineer — he only considered these two professions as viable career options.
While my brother chose engineering and went to IIT, I did try to study to become a doctor. I took up the bio sciences as this gave me an opportunity to draw a lot (diagrams!). During my 11th & 12th, I was constantly in a dilemma as I wasn’t sure if going for an education in design would be something that my family would agree with. Thus, I would mug my medical books during the day and secretly prepare for the NIFT entrance exam at night.
When I actually made it to NIFT and got an All India 73 rank, I couldn’t really believe it, and as for those around me, they couldn’t wrap their head around why would I want to leave a possible career as a doctor to actually go and study design? Design back then wasn’t considered a viable career at all. After spending a lot of time convincing my family, I moved away from home in Gurgaon to study at NIFT Mumbai for four years.
After the learning , comes unlearning
I joined NIFT because I was fascinated with smart textiles and clothing (which was just making its way to India in 2006) and wanted to learn about them. But NIFT placed more emphasis on old school design, surface ornamentation and embroidery, for instance. I then realised that this wasn’t really for me. A sought after internship with fashion designer Neeta Lulla didn’t make me happy either, because Bollywood costume designing was not something I wanted to do. I then moved onto a retail brand and started designing women’s western wear for their export markets. With further stints at a real estate company where I was handling their marketing and branding and running my own event management startup on the side, I decided to take a stab at pursuing an MBA.
Fortunately during this time, I happened to hear of a very interesting course — New Media Design (created around upcoming and innovative technologies) — right in line with my interests, at NID Gandhinagar. I always wanted to work in smart clothing and I already knew all aspects of fashion design. But now I needed to pick up the right technologies, and knew that this course could help. I did make it through NID and studying there for two years was one of the most life changing experiences for me.
At NID I learnt to unlearn everything that I had learnt previously at fashion school.
I was the only fashion design student in this course and I would try to create smart textiles, working with weavers in looms where I would weave in electronics into clothing. For instance, I would work with thermochromic inks that would change with temperature and weave in wires with threads and create circuits while weaving. I would just keep experimenting with wearable electronics by weaving them into textiles. While at NID (between 2015–2017), one of my projects (see image below), which explored the design of garments that can change their form in response to emotions expressed online on social media platforms in real-time, got selected for an exhibition — Intersections Exhibition in London by Loughborough University, and it was the only entry from India that year.
As part of my final due project at NID, I am working on the theme of “women and their condition under patriarchy in India” — an ongoing project very close to my heart. The project is an online repository and community of work built around the three themes — a lack of agency faced by women, lack of language to talk about their experiences and the concept of isolation — women kept away from decision making.
Meanwhile, I moved to Bangalore to work with Belong, a recruitment startup as part of branding and then joined Nestaway as their first product designer. But I always wanted to do something that would have an impact, especially on women. Knowing about my project and my intent, a friend and colleague at Nestaway, who had heard of Meesho’s work through friends working there, recommended the company to me.
Meesho was already doing something big in terms of creating impact for women resellers and that was something close to my heart too. Once I interacted with Jaya Jha (GM & VP of Activation & Community) and other product team members, I was convinced that I had made the right decision.
The reseller experience
At Meesho, I have gotten a chance to work on several interesting projects, across all orgs, but special among them has been working on the custom logo creator. The team working on this project truly exhibited Speed over Perfection (a core Meesho value). Previously done designs were not working out and in two nights flat my colleague Shikhar Saxena and I redid the entire logo creator from scratch. The idea was to build it in such a way that anybody on the platform can create a logo of their choice, no special skills required. Other impactful projects included working around reseller identity and community and the Meesho Reseller VIP programme.
Personally, I realised quite early that If I don’t have financial independence, I can be dominated or controlled by others. So I was adamant about building my own career path. If I am not financially independent, then anyone can tell me what to do and what not to do. Hence Meesho enabling women the power to earn, which I think brings about a huge sense of independence, really resonated with me. I chose Meesho because I felt I would be able to create impact and change lives. I have earned certain privileges now through what I have done in life and I know that there are women who don’t really have that. Hence Making the Reseller Successful is a value that I identify with the most.
Even If I am designing a very small feature, I always have to keep in mind how much my actions will help a reseller’s business grow and help them sell better on the platform.
Design matters
In my previous roles at startups, I felt design was not really given that much importance. While product and business are always given precedence, design is often a compromise. There is this under developed assumption in India that designers are here to just make things pretty.
Good design can be liberating and it enhances the user experience like no other.
At Meesho though, product and design play an equal role in the output, and there is constant dialogue with lots of brainstorming thrown in, between teams. As a UI/UX designer, my opinion is given a lot of importance. We are on a journey to define the design journey at Meesho and one day I am hopeful that Meesho’s design team will have an individual standing of its own. And with the world experimenting with AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality), I am curious to see if we can use these technologies at Meesho in the future.
My biggest learning at Meesho has been to sometimes let go. I tend to get too attached to my designs, and sometimes find it really hard to scrap them and start over afresh. But I have learnt to always put the company and team over yourself (Company > Team > Individual is another Meesho value) at Meesho. Knowing when to move on to the next thing, once you pivot or if a project gets parked, and not get too personal about it is something that I have learnt at Meesho. I have also learnt to work very closely with data here, and now understand how data can actually define lives.
Want to join Paridhi and the product design team to help create 20 million entrepreneurs by 2020? Then read more here. Apply here. We are hiring!
