Promotion: How PortsideCafe became a cult lifestyle brand

When you mention the brand PortsideCafe to anyone you’re usually greeted with an enthusiastic response like, “Oh my god, I love their furniture!” What’s not to love? Their curiously named collections are the most nostalgic and artistic way of buying furniture in the Indian market today.PortsideCafe is a purposeful brand. They create things that are meaningful and you’ll find that the people who appreciate the brand reciprocate that sense of artistic purpose. Dayanita Singh, Arundhati Roy and Ritu Dalmia are only a few names that resoundingly resonate with the brand’s simple, (sometimes quirky) curating style.We don’t quite know where to place PortsideCafe, which is part of their charm. We know it’s definitely high-end, but not so fancy that it won’t include a few salvaged oil cannisters to make a lamp. But it certainly is a distinctively recognizable brand of furniture & accessories.After years of being known solely for their signature printed & hand-stained leather furniture, the brand is now exploring materials such as metals, fabrics & timbers as main materials to create new focus areas. A case in point is a new lifestyle brand called ‘Mashak’, where you’ll find everything from candles to table linen, travel as well as personal accessories targeted it to a newer audience. Whether it’s leather, canvas or cloth they’re working with, it’ll always be the design that first draws you into their stores.Brand master Bobby, oversees every aspect of the brand personally. There’s a lot of seemingly insignificant stuff that goes into the making of this brand, from the words on the packaging to the music in his stores, and he knows only too well that he can’t do it alone. Over the years he’s curated a team of people that stay true to the philosophy of the brand and are encouraged to perform at a heightened level of awareness.With all this attention to detail behind the scenes, you can imagine the amount of effort that actually goes into their final products. PortsideCafe is a brand that’s found its niche and is very comfortable in its nitpickiness. They don’t know any other way of making things and that suits us just fine.