There is a particular kind of attention that matters more than the loud kind. It comes from being read closely and represented accurately. That is what happened this month, when our founder Ankita Khoje was featured in The Story Exchange's 1,000+ Stories Project, a platform dedicated to the women shaping business, science, politics and culture.
The piece, titled "Fashion That Meets Women Where They Are," asks a question we built this entire company around. What happens to a woman's wardrobe once her confidence, her lifestyle and her body have all evolved, but the clothes available to her have not.
The Gap She Set Out to Close
Ankita speaks plainly about the customer the industry left behind. Women in their prime, whose evolving bodies and lives were rarely met with research driven fit or intelligent design, only with louder trends or quieter resignation. IKKHO was built as the answer: a premium womenswear label shaped by refined silhouettes, timeless construction and a closer understanding of what these women actually need from their clothes.
Asked about her biggest success to date, she points to something we consider the real milestone. Not a launch, not a headline, but the act of turning a clear gap in the market into a fully realised brand with a strong point of view, built from the ground up, with a message that has genuinely resonated with women who often feel overlooked by fashion.
Building Visibility, On Her Own Terms
She is equally candid about the harder parts. Gaining visibility as a young brand in a crowded market remains the top challenge, one she has met not with noise but with clarity: a defined identity, a specific customer, and storytelling that does the work louder marketing budgets usually do.
There is also a quieter thread running through the interview, about what it means to build IKKHO as a young Indian founder in the UK, designing for women decades into their own becoming. Two distances, she explains, that sharpened her sense of purpose rather than diluting it. Watching how often women like her own mother go overlooked by fashion became one of the clearest reasons to keep building.
Her Advice, and Ours
Asked what she would tell other founders starting out, Ankita's answer is one we return to inside the studio often. Get very clear on the problem you are solving, and stay close to it. Clarity, more than capital or speed, is what lets a young brand say no to distraction long enough to build something of lasting value.
She is just as honest about the patience the work demands. Progress is not always visible in the early stages. That does not mean it is not happening. Sometimes the most important work is the foundation laid quietly, long before anyone is watching.
Read the full interview on The Story Exchange.
