Going deep into the narrative, Chugh identified how the curved hemline of shirts—or the apple cut—was retracted from the South Indian market because the men there prefer shirts with straight-cut hemlines over their lungis. After five years with Raymond, he would go on to work with the Aditya Birla Group as a fashion designer for women’s wear.

Throughout those years, the most pertinent observation he made was the absence of a range offered to the men in India. This is why he started Line Outline. His challenge was to break the monotony in Indian menswear. The options for them oscillated between khadi-oriented menswear or just wedding wear. “They were offered nothing in between,” he says. To launch in the midst of the pandemic, was tricky business.

But Chugh kept chugging on. He approached known contacts and tailors. Some were willing to work from their sewing machines at home under restrictive lockdown conditions.

The Bombay-based team came together organically: one tailor knew an embroiderer who knew a fellow embroiderer and so on. They coordinated over  WhatsApp and today his team is spread across Nalasopara to Bandra. He currently works with a small team—an assistant designer and three tailors—from a studio in Mulund in Bombay. 

Chugh’s take on sustainability is fresh in a world agog with climate concerns. Sustainability to him is the responsibility of any business owner to ensure a healthy work environment for their labour force. “Today when we talk about sustainability, the first thing you will ask is are your fabrics sustainable? But you can be sustainable in terms of how you run your business,” he says.