In 1986, long-time friends Rasmi Paliwal and Sterre Sharma decided to become partners in aready-made children’s garments business called “Balloons”.

By 1986 Rashmi and Sterre had already been working for many yearsin the field of designing and developing fashion collections for India’s fledgling export garment industry.

Rashmi and Sterre realised when their children were still small and growing fastthat there was a need for good ready-made children’sclothing outlets in India. They had noted that there was little variety and available localchildren’s clothing was often of low quality. This made it difficult for them to buy nice and creative clothes for their children to wear. Rashmi and Sterre thus realised that there was an important opportunity in the field of children ready-made clothing.

The first Balloons shop was opened in Greater Kailash Part 1 and received an overwhelmingly positive response. Later the Balloons shop moved to three other popular locations. At that stage, the company started receiving export orders for ladies and children’sgarments.Garments from Balloons were then exported all over the world from Australia to France, Scandinavia and the USA. The main factory was located in New Delhi.

The Balloons business remained active for about 25 years and employed many people in Delhi and in Rajasthan. People with disabilities were hired as part of the company’s initiatives to provide work opportunities and support social inclusion of such persons. After 25 years the business was sold to another company that continued the exporting business for some time.