Our Story
Leena Clothing was born in the mind of a young school leaver in the year 2018 when our Founder CEO joined university and attended an interesting "Meet and Greet Talk" with a lecturer who asked the audience what they want to be in 10 years?She wanted to be a HR manager and no one in the room wanted to be an entrepreneur or a businessman. The lecturer questioned again his audience. Why?
This young 20 year old came home and thought real hard. “Was it only men who had the power to start something so boldly and brazenly could I do it as a woman? If I did, will I empower young women like me to take a brave step forgoing a lot?”
A plan then set to stem up where the Business student who just started university having no knowledge on fashion went ahead, looking for pattern makers, learning fabric from scratch and coming up with designs and trying to give life without knowing anything on fashion designing. Yes, you heard that right! Fashion was born without any knowledge on fashion. “Fashion isn’t already preset you see, it’s made, you are fashion! If someone else can make a trend, why can’t you?”
Was it easy to start? Not really. Having no capital to start off and no bank wanted to lead money without salary slips no matter how many young entrepreneur loans were promoted, they weren’t feasible for actual young entrepreneurs. Then came the problem of looking for a pattern maker who would understand what we needed. After trying many, we finally found our great Lionesses, a home run factory lead and operated by women.. Ever since then we have continued to work with them over a period of five years. Women helping women, what a great thing indeed! (Please refer our page on women employment along with fashion and production to gain more insights on our production process)
Walking through the bustling streets of Pamunuwa, Pettah and Biyagama, the fabric we found are from local vendors. Round one went well and as a result, we kept going and Leena Clothing kept growing. From Online to Retail and Pop-Up culture. We have grown and name for ourselves not just locally but internationally as we took our brand to the South of Sri Lanka to a diverse tourist market. We are happy to mention that our items are also exported to the Dubai market. Our UAE partner which is also a woman lead enterprise has continued to work with us since 2022.
As Leena continues to grow, we hope to give our loving family of loyal customers a physical store that would give a better range and convenience.
On a final note to our story, here’s a message from our Founder / CEO,
“I truly hope I inspired young women to start like I did for nothing is impossible but it’s crucial to remember to receive HELP from people because you NEED it, you can’t always do things alone.
We must also not forget to empower and appreciate men apart from the women in our lives. The biggest help being my Husband. In a beautiful world we have both man and woman.”
Blog posts
-
Outsourced to a happy work environment
We choose to work with Lalitha and her staff by outsourcing our production line. We have continued to work with this small home run business from our inception and will...
Outsourced to a happy work environment
We choose to work with Lalitha and her staff by outsourcing our production line. We have continued to work with this small home run business from our inception and will...
-
Production
Attention to detail and perfection in every item is ensured.
Production
Attention to detail and perfection in every item is ensured.
-
Lionesses behind each piece of perfection
Meet Lalitha our head of production and her small team. The factory is home run and solely run and led by women. Lalitha ensures that production is at its best...
Lionesses behind each piece of perfection
Meet Lalitha our head of production and her small team. The factory is home run and solely run and led by women. Lalitha ensures that production is at its best...