The dream that became Label Rafat.

Long before her label made over a lakh at its very first exhibition, Rafat Jahan was a little girl collecting leftover fabric from the tailor near her house.

In August 2024, Rafat was finally launching her own label Rafat Designed in India. That same month, she rented her first stall at an exhibition for ₹25,000. And the money for it came from her very first order: two dresses, sold even before the label had officially launched.

When she walked in, she was surrounded by big names. "There were a lot of established brands, a lot of really cool brands at that exhibition," she remembers. "And mine was a first time, you know, a new brand owner. I was standing there with really different designs, because that's what my brand's USP is."

Of course, there were nerves. "I was a little nervous," she admits. "I was not sure how the public would receive it. But I got so much love for it. Even the woman who was hosting the exhibition complimented my designs, and she was quite surprised, like, God, you guys did well. And I'm like, yes, we did."

By the end of it, she had made over ₹1 lakh.

But to really understand Rafat's story, we have to go back to when she was just four or five years old.

She doesn't remember much from those days, but one thing she clearly remembers is her Barbie dolls. "Like every other girl, even I used to play with my Barbie dolls," she tells us. "And I used to get very bored of the outfits they came with."

So little Rafat found her own way out. She would go to the tailor near her house and ask for his leftover cloth. "Whatever leftover fabric he had after stitching his clothes, I used to borrow it from him," she explains. "I'd come home and just start making clothes for my dolls."

Drawing was always a part of her too. From junior KG onwards, she took part in almost every drawing and art competition she could. Then, when she was around 11, Fashion TV came into her life.

"I used to sit there and switch between Pogo and Fashion TV," she shares, "just to learn how to get better designs for my dolls."

She grew up watching big designers like Ralph Lauren, Carolina Herrera, John Galliano and Jean Paul Gaultier. And slowly, she started drawing her own designs on any empty page she could find.

"I just started making designs on the last pages of my notebook, or the empty pages of my school drawing book," she recalls. "Wherever I could find the space, I just started sketching."

She even saved ₹50 from her pocket money to buy fashion magazines. Before she ever step foot in a fashion school, she got herself a second-hand sewing machine for about ₹2,000 and started stitching and the experiments moved from doll clothes to real ones.

Rafat is very honest about how those early drawings looked. "The drawings I used to make were not at all good," she confesses. "They were really weird and creepy looking, just like kids make."

But her Ammi never saw them that way. At home, Rafat's pet name is Simran, and Ammi had one line she kept repeating.

"She used to tell me, 'Simran, you're so good at it, do more of this,'" Rafat shares. "And because she kept on praising me, I just kept on improving, year after year."

For Rafat, that support changed everything. "I'm sure a lot of people want to be cricketers when they grow up," she adds. "But that passion leaves in between. The reason my passion was not let go of is only and only because of my mother. People say silent supporter. I think she was a very loud supporter."

"If it wasn't for her appreciation, I would have left it in my childhood." Rafat Jahan

By the time she was 12, Rafat had made up her mind. She didn't just want to be a designer, she wanted her own label. And everyone around her knew it. So years later, when she finally started it, nobody was surprised at all.

"They weren't like, oh okay, we wish you luck," she says. "They were like, yes, finally. Girl, go get it."

But between the little girl with her dolls and the woman standing at that stall, something happened. When Rafat was 16, she stopped drawing. For almost three years, she did not pick up her pen.

Why did she stop? What made her pick up the pen again? And why did fashion school feel like "finally home"?