Varun Shashni completed his Master’s in Apparel Design and Merchandising from NID. He also holds a degree in design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi.

Varun started his professional journey with an Export house, designing knitted casualwear for the Indian retail market. He also worked with Hennes & Mauritz India Limited (H&M) where he was coordinating design developments between Indian manufacturers and the team in Sweden.

His longest work association was as a Senior designer with Fabindia. Varun was the first full-time designer to be hired by Fabindia at the inception of their in-house design team. Here, he worked across apparel and garment accessory categories initiating craft co-design, craft revival, value addition, diversification and vendor development. At Fabindia, he was also instrumental in conceptualizing and developing the brand’s first women’s occasion & wedding wear collection. He was also a part of a few uniform design projects undertaken by Fabindia. His experience here gave him a broad understanding of ethnic wear, fusion wear and the craft-based business of fashion in India.

He also worked with Biba Apparels as a Senior Design manager, managing design development for the Coordinated sets category in Ethnic Women’s wear apparel. He also led Vendor design meets and Customer feedback meets.

His last full-time engagement was an Assistant Professor with the Indian Institute of Art and Design, New Delhi. Here, he led the 3rd year of Fashion Design course and handled courses like Craft Internship, Design for retail, Design development, Trends and collection development.

Since past few years, Varun has been a practicing design academician. He has lead independent design projects for the Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited and for Rangsutra Crafts Private Limited, where he developed an apparel collection incorporating traditional hand embroideries from Rajasthan.

He also holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning for Higher Education from Kingston University, UK. This one-year program was based on the UKPSF framework of teaching and learning focussing on Active and Reflective Learning in Higher Education.

Varun joined as a faculty with the Apparel Design team at NID in 2020. His current areas of interest include apparel design for craft retail, trends for fashion, research on 3D visualisation for fashion, creative thinking.  

He is a sports enthusiast and loves to play Cricket, Soccer and Table Tennis. He also has a passion for music and films. He loves to spend time with his family.