Anantnag girl realizes biz dream in Srinagar ‘Hap Looks’

Launches first unisex style café ‘Hap Looks’

Srinagar: She faced many years of struggle, spent huge money to travel across India and even borrowed money from friends and family while she refused to give up to become an entrepreneur.
But after opening Kashmir’s first unisex style café on Sunday amid huge fanfare, Sobia Amin said five-year-long difficult period, emotional and financial stress was a price worth paying.
The 22-year-old from Dooru in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district said she would dream of becoming a stylist due to her style and fashion conscious persona.

After spending time outside Kashmir looking at different style and fashion brands, Sobia chose to open a style café in Valley which can give her a sense of freedom and responsibility.
“I have visited many saloons and style cafes of top brands in Mumbai and other metro cities. Then I realized that Kashmir too needs such service and decided to launch my own brand in Kashmir,” Sobia said.
To turn her dream into reality, the young entrepreneur came up with a brand ‘Hap Looks’ which is Kashmir’s state of the art unisex style cafe offering range of services at cutting-edge price.
The style café was inaugurated by Valley’s known hotelier Mushtaq Chaya where good gathering of youngsters visited on the inaugural day.
The saloon has been designed by Kashmiri architect couple- Zahaan and Beenish keeping in view ambience, style and cozy service delivery.
An engineering team headed by Binod Thakur eventually translated the design.
Sobia said the style experts have been handpicked from across India.
“Hap Looks has brought celebrity hair-makeover and nail artists under one roof,” she said.
Sobia said her family especially father Muhammad Amin Mantoo supported her to create the venture overlooking many notions and taboos.

The services available include hair styling, hair bonding, smoothening, hair yoga, hair color, streaking, bridal make-up, groom grooming, facial, manicure, pedicure, etc.
Sobia said that The Style Cafe would strictly use standard products of Loreal, Kerotesene etc.
“Moreover only industry standard equipments and paraphernalia are being used by our experts,” she said adding that the café will maintain hygiene equivalent to that of an ICU.
“We don’t keep anything unsterilized including a small thread,” she added.
The cafe also has gender-specific style artists as they have maintained gender segregation with separate rooms for males and females.
Hap Looks plans to have special zones for customers including wifi, ‘Cool Corner’ offering coffee, soft drinks and snacks besides a library. The style café will have special bridal and groom packages.
As an inaugural offer, Hap Looks has kept a 50 percent flat discount for during first week.