From Postpartum Depression to High-End Luxury Fashion

BY SHAGUN GUPTA

Like many other women, I’ve worn many hats starting from being a mother, a wife, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, and the founder and CEO of my LA Fashion closet. Today, I run a very successful business as an event producer and wedding planner. I have hosted and produced some very successful events in Los Angeles and partnered with designers and collaborators in New York. Currently, I am working on hosting and producing many more fashion events, not just in New York and LA but also in Paris, Milan, and India.

I also run a very successful network of Indian women, where I promote female empowerment through collaboration and promotion of their small businesses. I do a lot of community service in the Indian community, giving women a platform to come out on the show, talk about their businesses, get together, and network. I also was recently chosen to represent Rasanari, a high-end luxury fashion brand, as their brand ambassador.

But while it may seem that I am a very confident woman today who has achieved some success in life, this was not who I used to be. I was an introverted little girl in Delhi, India - a girl with very low confidence but big dreams. A girl with a lot of hustle inside her but did not have the courage to give life to that hustle.

Since I was young, I have always been creative. I wanted to do things like fashion designing or something along those lines, or other jobs related to makeup or modeling. However, I came from a very conservative family, and discussing these things was taboo. I was not encouraged to pursue those streams because my family had all the doctors and engineers like a typical Indian family. And I was required to choose one of those professions.

So, I did some work to comply with the family pressure, and I did enjoy corporate work. I joined human resources, where I started as a human resource executive and eventually became a human resource manager. I did that for quite some time and continued to do that even when I came to the US. Even after getting married, I continued to work in the corporate field because I thought this was what I knew best, and I did not know any better.

My heart knew something was missing. But my mind kept going because this was what I was supposed to do. I also didn’t want to upset anybody by wanting to do something so out of the norm, so I continued living as a good daughter and then a good wife. Then I had babies. I had two kids, one after the other.

When I got pregnant the first time, I had a very problematic pregnancy and postpartum depression. It was a high-risk pregnancy, and I gained a lot of weight. I had no help. No family. There was no one.

I had to do everything by myself. My husband was too busy getting his job in order and could not provide me with much moral support then. It was me alone, dealing with a lot of loneliness, a lot of health issues, and missing my parents and my family back home while at the same time managing a household.

My son was born, and I was pregnant again before I knew it. The second time I went through the same cycle again of high-risk pregnancy, more depression, more loneliness, and no support whatsoever. And it just continued. It seemed to be endless.

I was the only one dealing with all the household chores along with my mental and physical issues while my husband was out to work. I had to do everything while having a baby inside my belly and another one in my arms that I needed to feed and take care of, which is a full-time job.

My second son was born, and I was confined inside the four walls of my house. I was only a caregiver and a mother for the longest period of my life. And it got to a point where it was tough to battle all those mental and physical issues alone. It became harder and harder for me to get through my day because of all the weight I put on having two kids back-to-back.

If I sat down, I would take time to get up. If I just wanted to sit down, this would hurt my body. I stopped recognizing myself whenever I looked at myself in the mirror. I stopped seeing the person that used to be controlled.

One day when I sat down on the floor feeding my child and tried getting up because my other kid started to scream in the other room, I could not get up. I tried to stand up on my feet instantly, but I could not. It took me a while to hold on to something, pull my weight up from the floor, and slowly wiggle my way into the room where my son was screaming for me.

That’s when I started thinking: What have I done to myself? This isn’t me. There is a lot more to me than just being a mother, than just being this overweight person who’s depressed all the timewho’s not happy and certainly unable to keep anybody around her happy. So that is when I decided to start my journey to good health. It was a long and arduous journey, but I decided to take each day as it came.

I went out on the treadmill for about 10 minutes every day. That’s 10 minutes of either running or walking. I cooked my food in half, cut my portions in half, and started to care for myself. I started to wear makeup again. I started to look at myself in the mirror again and lose weight.

As I started to lose weight, I gained confidence and was able to get a grip on my situation eventually. I shed those extra pounds and felt beautiful again. I felt that I was ready to go out there and hustle, live my dreams, and be able to do what I always wanted to do.

But this time, I had other challenges. I was a brand-new mother with two little kids, the sole one with no help or support. This time the challenge was not what I couldn’t do but shouldn’t do. That I shouldn’t go out and work, I should not pursue my dreams because that’s not my job.

A typical Indian woman is often told that her job is to be indoors, taking care of the house, the kids, and the husband, and not explore the opportunities outside that would take them out of their house. And that is exactly what happened to me.

So I hustled my way into being a designer, creating clothing and jewelry in India, bringing them to the US, and selling them here. And I did pretty well. I felt proud of myself and the direction I was going until one day, I was told that it was keeping me away from the house a lot and good mothers do not leave their kids at home and go outside and hustle. I faced extreme motivation and discouragement.

But I kept going because my new hustle did not only allow me to live my childhood dream of fashion, makeup, and creativity but also enabled me to use the people skills I learned as an HR manager. I started doing smaller events in the Indian community, promoting women-owned businesses. They were women like me when I started many years ago, lonely and alone.

I found many women like this looking up to me for help and encouragement because I learned it the hard way. I didn’t have anyone to encourage me, but I thought it was my duty to talk to those women to help them out so that they could find a friend and then they can find someone who they could trust, someone who’s been through those situations before, just like they are right now.

I tried talking to those women, and doing that gave me so much satisfaction. It was like I was going back in time and helping myself. So when I saw the women being so thankful to me for coming forward and uplifting them and motivating them, I turned this into my life’s goal: through my events, I will empower and promote women in whichever way I can. I will promote their small businesses. I will give them a platform.

I started doing smaller events in Indian communities, and many women came forward with their support and motivation. I found a new family. I found a new circle of friends who were my supporters and who were there for me when I needed them. I didn’t have that support when I was starting, but I have finally found it this time.

With all the support and encouragement of those women, all of my events were very successful and were always sold out. Then it started to get bigger and better. With every event, I did something newer, got a bigger venue, and attracted more people. Eventually, I began doing big fashion events with fashion shows where I was able to invite influencers and socialites, and big designers who wanted to collaborate with me.

This has led to newer projects, which will take place this 2023, starting with a collaboration with New York Fashion Week. I’m also doing some projects with producers in Paris, Milan, and even India.

So, all I want to tell all the women out there who are struggling just like I was is that it’s okay to struggle, and it’s okay to fall. It’s okay to be depressed, totally unmotivated, not know where to go, to be lost, and to be directionless. It’s okay.

But what’s not okay is to stay there. What’s not okay is to not get up and not start walking again.

It’s fine to take baby steps, but you have to pick yourself up somewhere and start walking in the direction you want. You will get somewhere someday. It happened to me, and can it happen to anybody else.

Through my organization, I want to support all such women to come forward and talk to me. I provide coaching and counseling to many upcoming women business owners who are not confident, who want to start something new, or who have started something new and they need to learn how to go about it.

My mission and my goal have always been about female empowerment.

I would love to help whichever way I can, whether talking to women, uplifting and motivating them, or helping promote their businesses and bring them forward. By making them part of my events, they can network and utilize the opportunity to make it themselves.

The idea is to teach women the power of collaboration over competition - the power of the pack because I firmly believe that we are stronger together. We can achieve a lot more if we get over jealousy and hatred and instead support and truly empower each other.

I have always firmly believed and will continue to believe that when women help women, amazing things happen. And this is not just a tagline but my reality. It’s the reality of my company, LA Fashion closet.

About the author:

Shagun Gupta is a mother, wife, entrepreneur, and avid supporter of female empowerment by building relationships through networking, raising each other, and channeling the power of collaboration and supporting one another.

She founded her brand LA Fashion Closet in 2018 with the main mantra of “When women support women, amazing things happen”. The company has quickly become the leading source of networking, promoting, advancing, and entertaining women and girls by empowering them, bringing them forward, and highlighting their respective fields of work and entrepreneurial skills.

Shagun graduated from New Delhi, India, and did her Master’s in Human Resource Management at UCLA, Los Angeles.