'Work doesn't feel like work' for this multi-generational family selling South Asian wedding fashion
Business is booming for Chandan Fashion's Singh family, featured in the new CBC series Bollywed
Resting boisterously on the corner of Gerrard Street E. and Ashdale Avenue in Toronto, Chandan Fashion is a store you couldn't miss if you tried, with its bubblegum pink and baby blue exterior. In fact, tourists are known to snap a few quick shots as they pass on the 506 streetcar, or between bites at MotiMahal across the street.
Locals, on the other hand, are used to the eye-catching Indian bridal shop, which takes centre stage in the new CBC reality series Bollywed. In operation for 38 years, Chandan Fashion is a landmark of Gerrard India Bazaar, one of the largest enclaves of South Asian goods, food and culture in North America.
Founded by Jatinder Pal "Kuki" Singh — whose rambunctious energy has made him the face of the business for nearly four decades — and his wife Sarab, Chandan Fashion is the epitome of a family business: their two children, Chandan and Chandni, and daughter-in-law Roop all work alongside them. In fact, the store's roots go even deeper: Kuki's father ran a bridal shop in Punjab, Kuki Silk, named after his son.
Meet the family behind Chandan Fashion
Chandan Fashion's interior is a cosy but chaotic space, with lehengas, gowns, saris, kurtas and more resting layer upon layer on wall-to-wall shelves, and glass cases filled with glittering jewellery. And it's as colourful as its exterior and founder: from bright greens to sumptuous reds and shimmering golds, no hue is spared. The third floor is dedicated to a sprawling bridal showroom, which it took Chandan five years to convince Kuki to renovate.
The family at the centre of it all has kept the business thriving all these years. Kuki, Sarab and Chandan run the store, while Roop manages bridal sales and events, and Chandni handles custom orders. But that doesn't mean working with family — while also living with family, and doing just about everything with family — is easy.
"It's kind of nice that you get to have your family as your co-workers," says Chandan. "You know everything about them.… You know where the strengths or the weaknesses are. But then you also have [the feeling that] work doesn't feel like work — it's just like hanging out with your family."
Chandan and Chandni grew up in the shop and, for a time, even lived upstairs. As kids, they'd be tasked with writing up price tags.
When pressed, Chandan adds that the dynamic was a smidge more stressful before he married Roop two years ago, as he lived with his parents up until then.
"You go to work … and then your family's there, and you come home after work and your family's there," he says with a laugh. "You have dinner together, you wake up the next morning, you have breakfast, and family is there.… That was a really unique and special opportunity, you know — unique in the sense that you get to spend a heck of a lot of time with your family.… That also could create some times [when we would] butt heads or … have a moment of disagreement about how to run the business."
Now viewers will get a peek into the family dynamic, whether it's the kids accusing Kuki of holding onto too much stock — like $40 blankets, which are of little value and add to the mounds of items literally toppling over in the shop's basement — or heated discussions about whether they should expand the business with a second location. (Spoiler alert: a new Chandan Fashion is set to land in Brampton, Ont., in February.)
South Asian weddings are a booming business
The demand is there. In Bollywed, Chandan says of South Asian weddings: "It's bigger, better, bolder and families are willing to spend more money to make it happen."
A 2016 KPMG report revealed that Indians spend about one-fifth of their wealth on a child's wedding. In Canada, according to the CBC documentary Little India Big Business, the average Indian wedding costs about $100,000. While that might be shocking for some, it translates into about 50 to 100 customers per day for the Singhs. And while that's a healthy number, it's about half of what Chandan Fashion garnered in the late '80s and early '90s during Gerrard India Bazaar's heyday.
It's that shift that made Chandan realize he wanted to be a part of the family business, no matter how chaotic it could get. "I was going to be a pharmacist, and then someone told me that, 'Hey, you know what? Your parents have basically dug up a diamond that took them (at that point) like 20 years to dig. Now it's your job to take that diamond, polish it, cut it and mould it into this beautiful thing that you can showcase to the world,'" he recalls. " My perspective on the business really changed, and it … set the tone of what I wanted the next 20 years of the business to look like."
Bollywed: A series nearly a decade in the making
Part of that vision included this very television series and, with it, a new platform to showcase not only the family business and the growing wedding industry, but also his family's charm.
Chandan has been reframing the business as a global brand, as orders have been pouring in from everywhere from the U.K. and Singapore to the Netherlands and Brazil. After pitching Bollywed for seven years, he finally found a partner in Gurjeet Mann, a producer he met at a wedding show in 2014.
Chandan gets emotional at the thought of young South Asians — especially young Sikh men — seeing someone who looks like them run a business and essentially have it all. Unlike in the suburbs, being a teen in downtown Toronto in the '90s meant he was the only one in class with a turban and, later, a beard.
"I felt always out of place," he said. "I know that there are places out there, like Halifax and Saskatchewan and where there are kids that look like me.… Maybe they're going to a new school [and] maybe they're new immigrants and they don't fit in or they don't look like everyone else. And if they turn [on a channel like the CBC and they] see someone on TV that looks like them … [who's] from Canada — [who's] born and raised here — I think that will give them a sense of belonging."
He added that it's a familiar story of the new immigrant, "coming from another country with nothing in your pocket but a few rupees or dollars, and you just work from [the] ground up and you're able to make something like this. It's really special."
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