Advanced Entry Program in Textile Design, 2000

National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

B.Sc. Home Science [Textile Design], 1997

Delhi University, New Delhi

With over 18 years of industry and education experience in Design, Shalini has worked in the domains of Branding and Brand building, Textiles, Fashion, Exhibition & Graphics, Events and Education.

A large part of her consulting and job career has been dedicated to introducing and implementing Design thinking, strategy and process in branding and brand building in the domain of Apparel, Textiles, Exhibition and Retail industry. She has spearheaded and been deeply involved in the brand development and building for the Indian Apparel Export Sector, for the Apparel Export Promotion Council in collaboration with India Brand Equity Foundation, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, among other projects.

Over the last five years, as a Trend expert, she has worked to translate and mediate between social / societal information and the visual and colour information, to identify emerging patterns and trend directions for coming seasons for Home fashions and interior spaces. As a Textile designer, she has been designing and developing interior textile and lifestyle accessory collections for retail, show flats and contract.

She has deeply been involved with the Apparel Export Promotion Council, under the aegis of the Ministry of Textiles, GOI, as she spearheads the Design and Innovation initiatives at AEPC. She has been instrumental in setting up the Design strategy and processes in AEPC, through an integrated, holistic planning process based on the interplay between design and business strategy. Much more than the conceptual underpinning for the organization’s creative work, this has integrated design processes and design thinking into the larger business goals of the organization and in the process, elevated the concept of design to a strategic tool. She handles the creative visualization and design of all domestic and international B2B initiatives and events, their branding, signage and collaterals etc.

Shalini has also worked passionately with sustainability in Apparel design and mentored numerous design projects in this domain. She has also been working towards setting up an organised channel for ease of establishment, incubation and doing business for Startups in Apparel and Textiles

A staunch believer of “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – (Helen Keller), Shalini has been instrumental in fostering many corporate partnerships- through MoUs and affiliations- for collaborative working towards common objectives.

Her writing and oratory skills, backed by thorough domain knowledge have enabled her to write articles, seminar discourses and speeches for the top management as well as literature for brochures/ books ans social media/ blogs etc.She has tried to bring all this industry learning into classrooms and student projects through her passionate role as an educator, jury member and mentor. In her endeavor to introduce design and creative thinking to a younger audience, she has worked extensively with post graduate, under graduate and school students as well.