About - Nine By Janine

About Us

Nine by Janine is a homegrown, ethical chic footwear brand, based out of Mumbai, India, that boasts of carefully handcrafted products made from genuine leather. All our pieces are beautifully handwrought by local artisans, with as many as 30 years of expertise in their craft. Our label’s moniker, of course, comes from our founder Janine’s name, and the brand is not only an extension of her name, but of her personality too. In keeping with the theme, we decided to introduce the sandals in this collection in nine colours – just like all the girls out there, our founder loves to have a wide variety to choose from! No surprise then, that we call all our leather sandals ‘Nines’!

With Nine by Janine, we bring to our customers, an eclectic mix of footwear to choose from, coupled with our uncompromising stance on the quality of our footwear. While we aim to do all of this by taking inspiration from the diverse world of fashion, we do not fall prey to fads and trends. We are carving our own, unique path, enhanced with our in-house design expertise.

Meet Janine

Our enterprising founder, Janine Vakharia, completed her master’s degree in clinical psychology, but design has always been in her DNA. She joined her family business in 2018, and as she became increasingly proficient in areas of design and product development, she felt the need to create something of her own. With a dearth of genuinely well-crafted sandal options available in the Indian market, and constant persuasion from her friends and family to start her own line, she took the plunge, and Nine by Janine was born.

Janine brings her innate talent and passion for design, to everything that is produced under her label. Her hands-on involvement at every step – from designing, to manufacturing and even packaging, ensures that no piece

reaches our customers without our founder’s stamp of approval.

While Janine has had tons of fun in creating and curating this collection for you, she has put in tremendous hard work for this label to become a reality. She hopes you absolutely love wearing her label, and have as much fun styling her pieces.

What makes us the best

At Nine by Janine, we thoroughly research the latest in footwear fashion, especially prevailing in Italy, with frequent visits made by our founder and team of designers. We then use the inspiration painstakingly gleaned from our visits, to create fresh new designs for you. Our designs are a local, avant-garde take on western concepts.

Every pair is finished to perfection in terms of both designs, as well as treatment of the leather, and then put through a strict quality check. Having met our stringent quality check standards, they are carefully packed in their shoe box, together with a little thank you note, to show you just how much we appreciate your business, and finally delivered to you with love.

Our Products

The multi-step making process for our products begins with the designs being digitally sketched using a software, and undergoing rounds of modification, according to the designer’s tastes. A multiplicity of leather swatches are tried on the designs. Once the designs are approved after several rounds of iteration, they are hand sketched on the physical mock-up of the sandal, and a paper pattern is made for each design.

Every piece of leather used in the making of our sandals, is tested to ensure it is chrome free. In addition, the collection includes sandals whose soles are made from vegetable tanned leather, which means that no chemicals are used in the tanning process, instead biodegradable materials like tree bark, are used to achieve the same result. The insoles of all the sandals in the collection are made from vegetable tanned leather. We are an eco-conscious brand, and small changes like these in our processes, help to further our sustainability efforts.