What problem does Chandra Yoga & Active Wear solve?
Chandra Yoga & Active Wear’s clothing is designed with four simple concepts of fashion, quality, value, and charity. From strong-looking solids to vibrant patterns, there are plentiful options to match with all personality types, and our patterns are fitted for real bodies. Only premium fabrics are utilized that are sweat-wicking, breathable, stretchy, have UVA/UVB protection, and are NOT see-thru. Aside from our great prices, every sale contributes to charity, which makes your purchases even more worthwhile!
Our durable, yet supple, flexible sportswear is high-performance while soft to the touch and will make you look as great as you feel during your workouts. The leggings have a custom added gusset for flexibility and comfort during strenuous activity, while our many styles of sports bras offer different levels of support from medium to strong in order to match various activities while still looking excellent. All our clothing is perfect for Yoga, Pilates, martial arts, running, exercise, working out, and also great as leisurewear.
As the founder, what is your background?
I’m Cindy Simmons, the mother of three young boys who were all born in Phuket, Thailand. I’m a yoga fanatic, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and founder of Chandra Yoga & Active Wear. Originally from Ratchaburi, Thailand, holding a BEd Degree in Education and married to a native Californian, I’m both a dedicated mother and businesswoman. Interests include daily yoga and exercise, teaching and playing with my children, caring for the environment, and always looking for ways to build community or local socials to address issues.
Prior to establishing Chandra Yoga & Active Wear, I was a key member of the founding Thailand Elite government operation team, a state-owned enterprise within the Tourism Authority of Thailand as its sole shareholder, that provided affluent customers the ability to access Thailand’s VIP entry points and visit the country in a whole new way. However, this was definitely not my calling and after a life-changing work trip, I completely changed my career focus to embark on a terrific entrepreneurial adventure.
How did you come up with the idea?
After meeting my husband on a work trip to Phuket, Thailand, I decided to quit my job to restart my life on the holiday island resort. Having practiced yoga for 15 years and meeting a lot of practitioners with the newly available time on my hands gave me the inspiration to explore other opportunities. Personally, it’s not easy for me to stay home, do yoga and just relax. Wanting to be constantly challenged and with a desire to improve the lives of others inspired me to find another calling.
Being an avid yoga enthusiast, I love the fact that yoga is rapidly growing in popularity with people taking care of themselves more while also wanting to look great doing so. I frequently purchased new patterned clothing and accessories every month but didn’t feel justified in doing so, as the popular brands didn’t contribute to helping others and giving back to the community as part of my core values.
In the studios, I loved seeing friends wearing bright and beautiful clothing that matched their personalities, but was upset seeing that many brands, even expensive ones, didn’t seem to fit real bodies, were see-thru and designed for only slim models or mannequins. Another issue that I had was the cost of the clothing versus the quality of the material used. This was the inspiration that led me to create a new brand, Chandra Yoga & Active Wear, for real people’s figures, using higher-quality fabrics that aren’t see-thru, with a reasonable price, and giving back to charity.
How can this transform the world or our day-to-day lives?
Helping those in need originates at the forefront of our production processes, and not only through our donations to World Vision from every product sold. For the patterns and artwork of our clothing and products, we utilize artistic creators in the third world and developing countries, allowing them to earn a good living from remote areas. Our clothing patterns are fine-tuned using several different nationality body types to ensure they fit real people and not only fashion models. Materials are sourced that will have longevity through multiple washings and are of the highest quality. The factories that produce our active wear and accessories have been personally inspected to ensure that they provide safe and good working conditions, not just “fair”, and that they only employ legal-age employees. Product pricing is set low to encourage customers to buy our products that are of the highest quality that also give back to those in need. Eco-friendliness is part of the core values as well, utilizing recycled components wherever possible.
Knowing that our company is selling products of the highest quality that are manufactured in underprivileged areas, while assisting those producing them through fair pricing, and also helping children in need by giving a donation from every item purchased to World Vision, allows us to feel great about what we do and we hope that our customers will help spread the word about our company. Customers also feel good knowing that they are purchasing from a company that produces beautiful, high-quality, and reasonable eco clothing that gives back to charity with every purchase. So it’s a win-win!
What do customers love most about your products?
That would definitely be how beautiful our active wear is along with how soft and comfortable, yet supportive it is. It’s one thing to get some good-looking active wear, but when it feels great and provides additional support beyond what you are used to, you can achieve better results in your workout.
There are regular comments from customers about how our colorfully designed clothing brightens their day and makes their workouts even more productive while being so comfortable. Customers try harder to get the best poses while wearing our clothing to pose for pictures to spice up their social accounts, as you just can’t deny that colorful active wear beats out a dull look any day of the week!
When we received tagged images of customers parachuting, scuba diving, horse riding, climbing Mount Everest, and at other exotic places wearing Chandra Yoga & Active Wear clothing, I was so proud and excited knowing the joy our clothing brings to others.
Many of our customers aren’t even aware that every purchase they make supports children through donations to World Vision as they just like the low-priced and beautiful clothing, but the ones who are conscious of the fact take pride and love this about us as well.
Where can people get your products?
Customers may purchase Chandra Yoga & Active Wear clothing via our website at ChandraActive.com. We ship worldwide and are in the process of adding warehouses in other countries to try to get the products to our customers faster.
Hopefully, in the future, Chandra Yoga & Active Wear will be available in local malls all over the world to provide high-quality active wear that helps those in need.
