Vedant Lamba is an entrepreneur and the founder of Mainstreet, one of India’s largest marketplaces for streetwear and sneakers. Headquartered in Mumbai, Mainstreet is a resale store founded to make streetwear more accessible to India.
Vedant was always nuts about building his own business and as a result, he has tried his hands at various ventures. In March 2017, he founded a company named Wilfred Media and Co. and in November 2017, he co-founded AV Enterprises, a trading company working in industries related to hair products, skincare, and other such items.
And what really paved the way for him was his latest venture, Mainstreet, which was founded in December 2017.
A broad idea of street fashion
Street style, like any other fashion style, is born out of the need for self-expression. But it differs from other styles in a way that it focuses more on individualistic expression rather than blindly pursuing high fashion trends.
Streetwear can also be defined as casual and comfortable clothing and primarily focuses on footwear such as sneakers. A wide range of people highly appreciates streetwear as it tends to represent inclusivity— it is gender-neutral and size-inclusive. Street fashion is mainly inspired by hip-hop fashion and the surf-skate culture of Los Angeles.
The Beginning of Mainstreet Marketplace
Ironically, Vedant was never really into sneakers and street style when growing up. But in 2017, he was exposed to the endless world of street fashion and he noticed it slowly making its way into becoming a mainstream fashion in various parts of the world.
He noticed the lack thereof in India and saw the opportunity to build something that would begin to popularize street fashion in India. He says that creating Mainstreet was purely opportunity-driven and that he still isn’t much into sneakers. “I was never a sneaker-head growing up, and whether I’m a sneaker-head today is also highly debatable,” are his exact words.
Vedant saw huge potential in this enterprise and his ideas finally started to come together through a YouTube channel named ‘Main Street’ which he created back in 2017. Two of his friends, Khush Lulla and Ikram Nagani also tagged along.
The primary focus of this channel was to spread awareness about all things street fashion and sneaker culture. Two months later, they started their resale business, Mainstreet, with which it all began to come together. To make street fashion and sneakers accessible to all parts of India and publicize these hidden fashion gems was the main goal here.
At its core, Mainstreet is a sneaker platform, with more emphasis given to sneaker culture. Their store collaborates with top brands like Nike, Adidas, Supreme, Yeezy, etc.
Mainstreet is essentially a consignment store. A consignment store is a shop that sells second-hand items under the authority of the original owner of that item. The owner of the consignment store acts as a third party through and a portion of the profits are received by them.
Success Story of Vedant Lamba
Vedant went from being a young man interested in revolutionizing the way people view fashion in India, to building his own outlet offering a wide variety of fashionable items to make your closet ready to take on the world.
He’s also been featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia under Retail and E-commerce list in 2022. He’s built a team of more than 30 people and has managed to build two retail stores in India, one in New Delhi and one in Mumbai. The one in New Delhi is spread across 1,600 sq. ft. and is said to be Asia’s largest sneaker resale store.
His take on building a successful business depends on how resilient you are. He says, “It’s always been less about how hard you work and how well you do things, but more about how hard you can get hit and still be standing tall”.
