Since 1994
You are judged before you speak.
Vijay Kapoor knew it in 1994. A man's clothes walk into the room before he does. So he started making better ones.
Vijay and Rakhi Kapoor, foundersThe Beginning
One man. No investors. 1994.
Vijay Kapoor started Derby with no investors and no safety net. A tailoring room in Egmore, Chennai, and a belief that a man's clothes speak before he does.
He was stubborn about fit and impossible about fabric. Rakhi Kapoor stood beside him through every season and kept the whole thing steady. Between them, one small room became a name men across South India trust.
The Derby manThe Community
Thirty years of men who came back.
Denim came after the tailoring, and it never left. Then shirts, linen, trousers, jackets and tees, every one cut for the same man.
You know him. He does not need a logo across his chest. He wants the shirt right at the shoulder and the jeans right at the waist, and he comes back for them year after year.
Thousands of men across Tamil Nadu and beyond have done exactly that. Wear Derby and you are one of them.
Derby Tailor Studio, Mount RoadThe Next Generation
The second generation went further.
Ricky Kapoor opened Derby Tailor Studio on Mount Road, Chennai. Eight thousand square feet given to one idea: clothes cut for one man's body, his posture, the way he moves. Japanese denim, Italian linen, fine suiting. A second studio followed in Shanti Colony.
Vijay is still at the heart of it. Under his own name, VK Bespoke, he drafts a pattern for one man and makes the suit by hand over several fittings.
Two ways of making clothes. One belief: how you dress is how you are remembered.
Derby, todayThe Road Ahead
50 stores is a start.
Derby has more than 50 stores today, and under Director JK Samuel the next ones are already opening.
The stores get bigger. The standard stays exactly where Vijay put it in 1994.
The Philosophy
Make Your Luck.
Luck is the word people use when they never saw the work.
The early starts. The salary you saved instead of spent. The years nobody noticed. Then one day it looks easy, and they call you lucky.
The horseshoe on every Derby label is for the man doing that work. You make your luck. We make what you wear while you do it.
Thirty years on
This is Derby.
Since 1994.