New Delhi, Nov. 2 -- There's a visible chuckle in Utkarsh Gupta's voice as he talks of the long lineof customers that snaked through the neighbourhood on 2 August. That Saturday homegrown sneaker brand Comet, of which Gupta is the co-founder, had launched the limited edition Comet X Naru drop at their Indiranagar store in Bengaluru. "We'd announced that we'd stock 200 pairs (each priced Rs.5,899) in-store and over 200 people queued up before opening time," recalls Gupta, 32. They sold out within an hour.

This special collaboration between Comet and Naru Noodle Bar was limited totally to 400 pairs. It was a rare coming together of a standalone Indian restaurant and a shoe label: the sneakers sported the noodle bar's logo and even had a ch...