Mahi Mohan, Founder, Sawsee Athleisure

She didn’t set out to build another activewear label. She set out to solve a problem hiding in her own wardrobe. Today, with Sawsee Athleisure, Chennai-based entrepreneur and wellness professional Mahi Mohan is challenging the conventional boundaries of activewear with a fabric-first philosophy, a distinctly Indian sensibility and a refreshing belief that women deserve clothes that move with their lives.

Sometimes, the most compelling entrepreneurial journeys begin with the simplest of frustrations. For Mahi Mohan, it was the search for a pair of soft, comfortable leggings. Despite having a wardrobe full of activewear, she found herself repeatedly reaching for the same two or three favourites. The question that followed was deceptively simple: why was it so difficult to find clothes that felt good, looked good and worked beyond the gym?

International labels weren’t necessarily designed for Indian women or the country’s climate, while much of the domestic market leaned heavily towards affordable polyester. Mahi saw a gap, but more importantly, she saw an opportunity to rethink what women should expect from their everyday clothing.

The result was Sawsee Athleisure, founded in 2025, a bootstrapped, fabric-first brand that is quietly challenging the conventional definition of activewear. Drawing on her background in strength and conditioning and wellness, Mahi wanted to create something that reflected the fluidity of women’s lives. After all, a woman’s day rarely fits into neat categories of workout, work, leisure and socialising. She might train in the morning, spend the afternoon working, meet friends in the evening or simply enjoy a slower day at home. Why, then, should her wardrobe demand a change of identity at every turn?

This thinking gave birth to Sawsee’s distinctive philosophy of Playwear. For Mahi, play is not restricted to sport, exercise or childhood nostalgia. It is movement, curiosity, dancing, exploring, unwinding and doing something simply because it brings joy. It is about making room for pleasure in everyday life rather than treating it as a reward that comes after everything else is done. The brand’s mantra, “Comfort first, confidence always, play on,” captures this philosophy with refreshing clarity.

Here, in an exclusive conversation with Sumita Chakraborty, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, TheGlitz, Mahi Mohan, Founder of Sawsee Athleisure, opens up about building a bootstrapped fashion brand, the science and patience behind fabric-first innovation, the changing face of athleisure, women in entrepreneurship and why she believes the world should be every woman’s playground.

Over To Mahi Mohan, Founder, Sawsee Athleisure

The Woman Behind the Brand: Mahi, you are an entrepreneur and wellness professional who ventured into the world of athleisure with Sawsee in 2025. What inspired you to build the brand, and was there a personal experience or an unmet need that sparked the idea?

Sawsee actually started with me looking for a pair of soft comfy leggings. I had a wardrobe full of activewear but would keep reaching for the same two or three pieces because they were the only ones I genuinely enjoyed wearing. It made me wonder why finding clothes that felt good, looked good and worked for everyday life was so difficult. International brands often weren’t designed around Indian women or our climate and much of the local market was focused on affordable polyester. I felt there was room to do things differently.

My background in strength and conditioning and wellness had already made me think a lot about movement and how we feel in our bodies. But I didn’t want to create clothing that women only reached for when they were working out. Our lives don’t happen in separate compartments. You could be training in the morning, working through the afternoon, meeting friends in the evening or simply having a slow day at home. I wanted clothes that could be part of all of it. That thinking eventually became Sawsee.

We call it Playwear because I genuinely believe play is a serious part of life. Somewhere along the way, play became something we associate with childhood or something we have to earn after we’ve finished everything else. But play can be movement, curiosity, dancing, exploring, spending time with people you love or doing something simply because it makes you happy. I wanted to build a brand that gave women a little more room for that. The idea is to make the world feel like your playground, in whatever way that means to you.

Building from Scratch: Sawsee is a bootstrapped venture in a competitive fashion market. What have been your biggest challenges in building a D2C brand from the ground up, and how have you navigated the realities of funding, customer acquisition and establishing credibility without the backing of external investors?

Building Sawsee has required a lot of patience, particularly because we chose to spend so much time on the product before launching. We spent more than 18 months developing our fabrics and getting the product right. In a market where trends move quickly and there is constant pressure to bring out something new, taking that time was a conscious decision.

It would have been easier to start with fabrics that were already available and move straight into designing garments. But then we would have been building another brand around the same materials and the same limitations we wanted to address in the first place. We wanted to understand what comfort actually meant for different activities and develop our products around that. And being bootstrapped also makes you think carefully about where you put your time and resources. You have to stay close to what you are building and be clear about why a product deserves to exist.

For us, that means not losing sight of the original problem just because there are trends or new opportunities to chase. I think the biggest thing is to build something that has a reason to exist beyond the fact that you can sell it. We started Sawsee because I couldn’t find what I was looking for. The challenge now is to make sure that what we create for ourselves genuinely works for the women we want to serve. We’re building trust through the product and the experience we want people to have with it. I wouldn’t want to claim that we’ve figured everything out, because building a brand is an ongoing process.

The Fabric-First Philosophy: Sawsee spent 18 months developing proprietary fabrics tailored to Indian weather. That is a significant investment of time and effort in a category often driven by trends. What went into this development process, and how did you identify the specific fabric qualities Indian consumers need for comfort, breathability and performance?

Most brands start with an existing fabric and then design a garment around it. We started with the yarn. For us, fabric isn’t a finishing choice that comes after the design. It is where the product begins. We wanted to understand what a fabric needed to do depending on how a woman would use it. Something designed for training has different requirements from something meant for yoga or spending a long day in.

We looked at how the fabric felt against the skin, how it breathed, how much stretch and coverage it offered and how it held up after repeated washing. Indian weather was an important consideration too. A fabric might look and feel great when you first try it on, but the real test is whether you still enjoy wearing it after a full day or several washes.

We developed different fabric families for different needs, including FABUL™, PLAYE™, EARTHKIN™ and SERENE™. Each has a role within the range rather than trying to make one material work for every product. We also put our fabrics through seven to eight months of testing before they reach the market. The reason we take the longer route is that I want people to love wearing our clothes, not just love how they look when they first see them. That takes a lot of work behind the scenes, but it’s fundamental to the kind of brand I want Sawsee to become.

Athleisure Beyond the Gym: The modern consumer wants clothing that can move seamlessly from a workout to a workday, a coffee date or a weekend getaway. How is Sawsee reimagining athleisure for this fluid lifestyle, and what does it take to create pieces that balance functionality, versatility and style?

Yes, I agree more and more women want clothes that move as they do throughout the day.I think they want clothes that make sense for the lives they already have. We might have been taught to think of gym clothes, home clothes and going out clothes as completely separate categories, but our days don’t always work that way. You could finish a workout and head out for coffee, travel in your favourite joggers or spend the day moving between work and everything else you need to get done.

That’s where our idea of Playwear comes in. Play is not just a sport or an activity. It’s the freedom to move through life in your own way. It can be something energetic and spontaneous or something as simple as taking time for yourself. I want Sawsee to be part of those moments rather than a brand women associate with only one part of their day. From a product perspective, that means thinking about the fabric, fit and silhouette together.

A garment has to perform the way it is intended to, but it should also feel like something you’d choose to wear outside that activity. Our fabric first approach helps us think about the purpose of each product before we decide how the garment should look.

I don’t want versatility to mean making clothes that are so generic they have no personality. The pieces still need to feel good and look good. The idea is to create clothes that let women get on with living, rather than making them plan their day around what they’re wearing.

Women, Wellness and Entrepreneurship: As a woman entrepreneur building a consumer-facing brand, what have been the most defining lessons of your journey so far? Have you encountered particular challenges while scaling Sawsee, and what advice would you offer women who want to turn a personal passion into a commercially viable business?

One of the biggest lessons has been understanding how much work sits behind something that might look quite simple from the outside. Sawsee began with a personal frustration about not finding comfortable clothes, but turning that frustration into a product meant learning to look at it from many different angles. It wasn’t enough for me to know what I wanted to wear. We had to work on the fabric, test it, develop the garment and make sure the final product delivered on the original idea.

My background in wellness influenced the way I thought about movement and comfort, but building a clothing brand has also meant getting into the details of product development and manufacturing. You have to be willing to question your own assumptions and accept that getting something right can take much longer than you expect. I think there’s sometimes a tendency to romanticise entrepreneurship as following your passion and watching it turn into a business.

Passion is a great place to start, but it doesn’t answer every question that comes with building something commercially viable. My advice would be to stay close to the reason you started, but be willing to do the less exciting work required to make the idea real. Test your assumptions, keep learning and don’t rush the parts that determine whether your product actually delivers. For me, Sawsee has always been about solving a problem I experienced myself. The responsibility is to make sure we’re solving it in a way that matters to other women too.

Comfort First, Confidence Always: Sawsee’s philosophy, “Comfort first, confidence always, play on,” suggests that clothing should empower rather than restrict. How does this belief translate into your design decisions, fit, functionality and understanding of body confidence? And how do you ensure that the brand remains inclusive of different lifestyles and needs?

I think we underestimate how much our clothes can affect the way we feel throughout the day. If you’re constantly adjusting your waistband, wondering whether a fabric is too thin or feeling restricted when you move, a part of your attention is always on what you’re wearing. I wanted to create clothes that let women forget about those little distractions and focus on whatever they’re doing. That’s why we start with fabric and think about the activity a garment needs to support.

We also test samples on women with different body types and heights because fit cannot be judged only by looking at a garment on a hanger or a design board. We need to understand how it feels on an actual person.

But for me, the idea of confidence goes beyond fit. I don’t think women should have to dress a certain way, look a certain way or be at a particular stage in their fitness journey to feel good in their clothes. Someone might want to train hard, someone might enjoy yoga and someone else might simply want to feel comfortable while going about her day. All of those experiences deserve space. This is also where our Playwear philosophy becomes personal.

When I talk about making the world your playground, I don’t mean that every woman needs to be constantly active or doing something exciting. It means having the freedom to decide what play looks like for you, without feeling that you have to fit into somebody else’s idea of it. We want to dress real women really well and give them clothes that make room for who they are rather than telling them who they should be. That belief has to show up in the product itself, not just in what we say about the brand.

The Road Ahead: With athleisure evolving from a workout essential into a mainstream wardrobe category, where do you see the biggest opportunities for Sawsee? What are your ambitions for the brand over the next few years, and how do you plan to scale while retaining the fabric innovation and customer-first philosophy at its core?

The opportunity I see is in moving beyond the idea that comfortable clothing belongs to a particular part of a woman’s day. I want Sawsee to grow around the way women actually live, with products for different kinds of movement and everyday moments. Our Playwear philosophy gives us room to explore that without being limited to conventional activewear.

Fabric innovation will continue to be central to how we develop products. I don’t want us to expand simply by adding more styles or following whatever is trending. I want every new product to have a purpose and for us to understand what the fabric and design bring to it. As we grow, we need to hold on to the willingness to test, rethink and improve rather than assume that getting a product to market is the end of the process.

My ambition is for Sawsee to become a brand that gives women permission to make play a part of everyday life. I want our clothes to be the ones they reach for when they want to move, explore, unwind or simply feel comfortable being themselves. The playground doesn’t have to be a physical place. It can be anywhere a woman feels free to do something for herself.

For me, growth will mean reaching more women without losing what made me start Sawsee in the first place. We want to keep developing thoughtful products, stay close to the people wearing them and build a brand that women return to because they genuinely enjoy it. If Sawsee can become part of how women make room for more play in their lives, that would mean a great deal to me.

TheGlitz Take

Indeed, Mahi Mohan is making a compelling case for going back to the basics… starting with the fabric. What makes Sawsee Athleisure interesting is that it isn’t merely selling athleisure; it is questioning why women should have to choose between comfort, functionality and style in the first place.

Mahi’s decision to invest 18 months in fabric development, rather than rush into a trend-driven launch, reflects a refreshing commitment to product integrity. Equally, her Playwear philosophy strikes a chord because it recognises that women lead fluid, multifaceted lives and their wardrobes should keep up.

TheGlitz believes Mahi’s real opportunity lies in making comfort aspirational without making it exclusive. If Sawsee can translate its fabric innovation and inclusive philosophy into consistently excellent products, it could help redefine athleisure for the Indian woman… not as clothing reserved for the gym, but as a lifestyle choice that celebrates movement, individuality and the freedom to simply be.