Aug 28: The brand was born from Arushi’s own experience of burnout while building her first fashion business, Roology. There were years when work consistently took priority over everything else, including important family milestones and personal time. Over time, she realised that burnout was not only about working too much, but also about the guilt that came with trying to stop.
That realisation became the foundation for Atleisure.
The label was created to address an everyday problem: women often dress for one part of their day at a time, moving between workwear, casualwear, activewear, and occasionwear as their schedules change. Arushi wanted to create clothing that could keep up with the entire day—from meetings and café work to travel, errands, social plans, and dinner—without compromising on comfort or looking underdressed.
Atleisure calls this category elevated comfort wear, bringing together soft, stretch-led fabrics and polished silhouettes designed for extended wear.
The collection has been developed with a strong focus on the physical experience of clothing. Using cotton interlock and cotton Lycra fabrics, the garments went through multiple rounds of sampling, wash testing, and extended wear trials. Instead of relying only on short fittings, testers wore the pieces for seven to eight hours at a time, moving through the kinds of activities and temperature changes that make up a typical day.
But Atleisure is ultimately about more than clothing.
Arushi’s journey from growing up in Solapur, Maharashtra, to building businesses in fashion has shaped her understanding of ambition, independence, and choice. Having witnessed the limitations women can face when they lack financial independence or the freedom to make their own decisions, she was determined to build a career on her own terms.
Her entrepreneurial journey also taught her that relentless work is not necessarily the same as meaningful progress. Atleisure grew from that realisation—not as an argument against hard work, but as an invitation to rethink what sustainable ambition can look like.
The brand believes that there will be days of intense focus and long hours, just as there will be days for family, friendship, sleep, recreation, and simply doing nothing. Neither kind of day makes a woman more or less ambitious.
As Arushi puts it, “Sometimes, rest is what allows you to continue.”
Atleisure begins with clothing, but its long-term vision extends beyond apparel. The brand aims to eventually create journals, content, applications, objects, and experiences that encourage people to recognise the early signs of burnout and make space for recovery before ambition begins to consume the life it was meant to create.
