WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY: AN INVESTIGATION OF BUSINESS STATUS, CHALLENGES, AND POLICY SUPPORT ECOSYSTEM IN INDIA

India's fashion and apparel industry is a major driver of women's economic participation, yet the experiences of women who own and manage fashion businesses remain largely absent from management research. This study examines three interconnected dimensions: what women-led fashion enterprises look like today in terms of scale, revenue, structure, and digital reach; what holds them back across financial, operational, social, market, and policy dimensions; and how well government programs designed to support them are actually working. A mixed-methods design combined a structured questionnaire administered to 248 women fashion entrepreneurs drawn from Delhi NCR, India, with a systematic review of government policy documents. Analysis included descriptive statistics, frequency distributions, mean importance-performance analysis, and thematic coding of open-ended responses. The numbers are clear. While 71.8% of respondents run micro-enterprises with annual revenues below INR 50 lakh, 62.5% have moved onto digital sales platforms. Access to formal credit scored highest in severity (M = 4.31/5), followed by market access and buyer network gaps (M = 4.19/5), and managing domestic responsibilities alongside business operations (M = 4.08/5). Despite more than twelve central government schemes relevant to women fashion entrepreneurs, average scheme awareness stood at just 38.7% and actual utilisation at 19.4%. The paper concludes with a policy-practice framework that covers sector-specific reforms, outreach strategies, and market linkage mechanisms.