Forbes India 30 Under 30: Nancy Tyagi – Sewing Her Way To Cannes | Forbes India
[CAPTION]Nancy Tyagi, Fashion designer and content creator
Image: Madhu Kapparath; Directed By: Kapil Kashyap[/CAPTION]
Nancy Tyagi was extremely concerned about the health and safety of her mother who worked in a coal factory in Delhi. “I wanted to get her to quit that job,” she says. The escape route she charted for her mother eventually landed Tyagi in Cannes.
During the Covid-induced lockdown, Tyagi, who had moved to Delhi from Barnawa village in Uttar Pradesh for UPSC coaching, used her mother’s savings for her classes to purchase a camera, and, with the help of her brother Ahaan, she started creating fashion content to post on Instagram and YouTube.
From recreating Shantipriya aka Deepika Padukone’s look from Om Shanti Om to her “favourite” Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s ‘Ramta Jogi’ look, Tyagi tried every trick in the book to garner views. The duo would create videos to participate in the MeeshoHaul, GRWM (Get Ready With Me), and 100 days of Outfit from Scratch challenge trends on social media—in the latter, one could see the self-taught designer picking up fabric from Seelampur market in Delhi and turning it into an outfit using her mother’s manual sewing machine. Creating dresses for her doll with scraps of fabric had been a favourite activity for Tyagi when she was little.
Undeterred by the body shaming comments she received on her posts, Tyagi gradually gained followers and was discovered by Monk Entertainment, a talent management, influencer marketing, and video production company in 2023. “The day we discovered her account, we realised Nancy’s story had potential that we could not even fathom. Her talent was unique, and her creativity knew no bounds,” says Viraj Sheth, CEO and co-founder Monk Entertainment.
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With the help of the team at Monk, Tyagi landed the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of showcasing her talent on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024, for which she created four outfits in four months. Made using 1,000 metres of fabric and weighing 20 kg, her pink ruffled gown with a long trail made fashion aficionados sit up and take notice. Her second look, of a hand-embroidered saree, caught actress Sonam Kapoor’s eye and she posted an Instagram story with the comment “Best outfit in Cannes… make me something.”
“We believed Cannes would be the right platform for her to showcase her designing skills and I’m just happy our hunch was right. While I knew she would seize the moment, the way she did and the way it was received was far beyond our imagination,” says Sheth.
The red-carpet debut at Cannes catapulted Tyagi to fame and since then she has received many collaboration opportunities from CaratLane, Lakmé, Pond’s, Dot and Key Skincare, and Clinic Plus, to name a few.
With a following of 3 million on Instagram and 2.49 million subscribers on YouTube, Tyagi says “Zindagi change ho gayi hai. Kabhi socha nahi tha (my life has changed in a way I could never imagine).” She continues to spend most of her time working on shoots, designing outfits, and planning promotional activities.
Recently Tyagi took a break from work and travelled to Maldives with her family. She also got her first car. While she wants to continue being a content creator, she wants to prioritise designing. Projecting into the future, she says, “I want my label to be the most well-known, and that my outfits are liked by all.”
Talking of her mother’s reaction, Tyagi says with a smile, “My mother couldn’t be more proud. All day, she calls people up and keeps talking about me.”
Nancy Tyagi (21)
Fashion designer and
content creator
