Indian craftsmanship makes a mark in Western fashion world

India has for centuries been associated with the finest in textile, embroidery, prints and craftsmanship. In fact, luxury was perhaps invented in the royal courts of Bharat before the Romans discovered and fell head over heels in love with luxury. India gave the world its first taste of the finest fabrics with intricate weaves and statement accessories in gold and silver, studded with diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies.

Anew battle rages on, fuelled by the politically-correct opinion leaders – that of cultural appropriation. Whilst it may be considered limiting for the ever-seeking fashion sector, always on the lookout for new ideas, there is a solid case for appropriation too. When indigenous designs and craftsmanship are superimposed on items that have no context to the said design and craftsmanship, then it is termed as fusion but the flipside is blatant appropriation.

Global footprint for Indian designs

India has for centuries been associated with the finest in textile, embroidery, prints and craftsmanship – from ornate brocades to exquisite and grand jewellery. In fact, luxury was perhaps invented in the royal courts of Bharat before the Romans discovered and fell head over heels in love with luxury. It was India that gave the world its first taste of the finest fabrics with intricate weaves and statement accessories in gold and silver, studded with diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies.

Word has it that the intricate patterns of India created the vision Louis XIV had for the magnificent Versailles. In Napoleonic France and through the novels of Jane Austen in Regency England, we see how wearing fine Indian muslin denoted the consumer’s status, taste and connoisseurship. Such was the popularity of textiles like the brightly-painted chintz, that France and England placed decades-long bans on their import in the 18th century in order to protect their own silk and wool mills. However, the desire for these vibrant textiles meant that despite hefty fines, they were smuggled as contraband and worn in the privacy of the home.

Indian embroidery is loved across the world and designers have made embroidery a contemporary statement in the Western fashion world. Another Indian contribution is draping. Be it a sari or a dhoti, Indian dress patterns often include a lot of pleats. This pattern has been creatively adopted in forming ruffle crop tops and drapes for gowns. Indo-western outfits are a coalition of elements from Indian traditions and western world of apparels. Indo- western looks include a fun styling experience of matching and accessorizing elements of both cultures to create an alluring ensemble. Already popular in India, it is spreading across Europe in particular.

Are Indians seeing this entire legacy of transfers of their design and craftsmanship to the West as cultural appropriation? In all possibilities, Indians haven’t yet jumped on to the “cultural appropriation bandwagon and rather interpret it as appreciation. The trend to capitalize on Indian design has benefitted Indian designers as their fusion wear is gaining popularity globally for fashionistas with a luxury edge. Additionally, our craftsmen are gaining more work as bespoke designs are being ordered for in mass quantities. Fashion houses are commissioning exclusive patterns inspired by the traditional Indian designs of various regions.

In such a scenario, India seems to be not only regaining its pole position as the provider of beautiful, exquisite and timeless luxurious items but also adding this to its portfolio of soft skills to charm the world. 

Aditya Birla plans stake in TCNS

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail is in advanced talks to acquire a 51 per cent stake in TCNS Clothing.

The deal will be a mix of stock and cash, and is likely to be signed and announced soon. The transaction will provide Aditya Birla Fashion access to a strong portfolio of women’s wear brands with a strong distribution network. TCNS Clothing is the owner of the popular women’s wear brands W and Aurelia.

TCNS Clothing reported a 46 per cent growth in revenue in the September quarter from a year ago. Operating profit grew by six per cent while net profit declined 31 per cent.

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail sells clothes and accessories from Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly and Peter England, among others. Aditya Birla’s strategy is to build a portfolio of new-age, digital brands across categories in fashion, beauty and lifestyle segments. Aditya Birla plans to enable multiple founders to operate within a synergistic platform that will have shared capabilities and make eight to ten investments in early-stage digital first brands by the end of this financial year with the initial focus being on broad categories of fashion.

Traditional companies have the wherewithal to acquire new D2C brands to compensate for their late entry in the online space, a channel that now accounts for 30 per cent to 50 per cent for several brands.

Single window clearance for retail likely

and pan-India acceptance of a license issued by one state will be encouraged. Wholesale distribution markets may be treated at par with industrial areas or parks.

India’s retail industry is projected to grow nine per cent through 2030. Retail accounts for over ten per cent of the country’s gross domestic product and around eight per cent of employment. India is the world’s fifth largest global destination in the retail space.

Reliance acquires Metro Cash and Carry

Reliance Retail’s physical store footprint and ability to better serve consumers and small merchants by leveraging synergies and efficiencies across supply chain networks, technology platforms and sourcing capabilities.

Metro is a leading international specialist in wholesale and food retail in 34 countries. Metro Cash and Carry, its wholesale division, entered India in 2003 and currently operates 31 wholesale distribution centers centres across the country, serving business customers only. It sells products such as fruits and vegetables, general groceries, electronics, household goods and apparel to clients like hotels, and restaurants as well as offices and companies, small retailers and kirana stores.

Metro India is a key player in the Indian B2B market and has built a solid multichannel platform delivering a strong customer experience.Metro India’s healthy assets combined with Reliance’s deep understanding of the Indian merchant / kirana ecosystem is expected to help offer a differentiated value proposition to small businesses in India.

Reliance is India’s biggest brick-and-mortar retailer with over 16,600 stores.

ABFRL buys Bewakoof

Indian retail will soon have a single window clearance to acquire all registrations, licences or clearances for trade.

There may be a single license for a retail store and a general category of license for selling over the counter items for retailers without the requirement of employing qualified professionals. The aim is improvement in the ease of doing business in the retail sector. One of the proposals is an accident insurance scheme for traders and traders’ welfare boards at the national, state and district levels.

The policy is not intended for e-commerce, direct selling, multi-level marketing or street vendors and the aim is to provide a national common framework for the development of the retail sector across the country. As per the draft policy, efforts will be made to replace licenses with a simple registering process

Reliance Retail Ventures will acquire a 100 percent equity stake in Metro Cash and Carry. Through this acquisition Reliance Retail will get access to a network of Metro India stores located in prime locations across key cities, along with a large base of registered kiranas and other institutional customers, and a strong supplier network.

The acquisition will further strengthen

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail is set to acquire apparel and accessories brand Bewakoof. Bewakoof, founded in 2012, one of the first D2C brands in the country and operates in the western-style clothing segment.

AdityaBirla Fashion and Retail sells clothes and accessories from Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly and Peter England, among others. The acquisition is part of Aditya Birla’s strategy to build a portfolio of new-age, digital brands across categories in fashion, beauty and lifestyle segments.

Aditya Birla plans to enable multiple founders to operate within a synergistic platform that will have shared capabilities and make eight to ten investments in early-stage digital first brands by the end of this financial year with the initial focus being on broad categories of fashion.

Traditional companies have the wherewithal to acquire new D2C brands to compensate for their late entry in the online space, a channel that now accounts for 30 per cent to 50 per cent for several brands. Although there has been a drop in late-stage funding, Indian startups are seeing an uprise in large corporates looking at acquiring established brands with great products and strong customer loyalty. This is not just strategic but also a natural growth path for these companies

Brands, retailers loggerheads with malls over rent

Brands and malls differ over rentals, while malls want an increase in rentals every year, retailers want to retain the current system of rental hikes every three years. Malls typically sign nine year agreements with the retailers with a rental hike of 15 per cent every three years. But by increasing the rent five per cent each year, retailers will have to shell out about 17 per cent in lease cost in three years.

Large retailers are opposing the move given the number of stores they operate. Brands, since they invest a lot in fit-outs, feel an annual rental hike will make the business unviable. This means every month brands will have to keep the rental hike in mind.

Some malls have started something like staggered rentals so that they can hike the rentals every year. However, in the first year, they don’t put much pressure when the brand is trying to settle in. But once they start doing well, the malls push for a rental hike.

Mall developers aim at pushing for a 20 per cent rental hike every three years given the inflation and cost of raw materials. They say the cost of everything has gone up and fresh efforts have to be always put in to sustain. Since retailers are doing good, they feel, they should not be hesitant in absorbing the hikes.

Goat acquires Chumbak

and supports growth by providing data-driven insights, supply chain expertise, financial planning, and deep expertise in brand building, digital marketing, product development, etc.

Goat, backed by marquee investors, has emerged as the leading aggregator in the fashion and lifestyle space. Goat has a portfolio of fast-growing fashion and lifestyle brands. The vision is to make Indian D2C brands world famous. Last year Goat Brand Labs acquired multiple well-known D2C brands including The Label Life, India’s top celebrity-styled brand, and trueBrowns, a premium ethnic wear brand, both of which have grown multifold since their partnership with Goat.

Apparel spending falls in the third quarter

Indian consumers spent less on apparel this festive season.

Diwali when consumers generally spend more on clothes.

The slowdown in discretionary consumption is due to a combination of factors such as withering of pent-up demand, especially after the festive season, or elevated inflation hitting household savings. No rapid turnaround in demand is expected, given the underlying economic challenges, but recovery in the staples volumes is seen as possible. Consumers are expected to remain wary in the coming months.

Marks & Spencer Q3 sales up nine per cent

Goat Brand Labs has acquired Chumbak. Chumbak is an iconic home and lifestyle brand, with unique Indian aesthetics and a wide base of loyal consumers. The brand has strong sales on both online and offline channels.

Goat Brand Labs plans to grow Chumbak to Rs 500 crores by 2025, accelerate its growth as a powerful and global brand in the home and gifting space, leveraging Goat’s deep capabilities in brand building, digital marketing, online and offline growth, and expansion into international markets.

Goat Brand Labs was founded in May 2021. Goat works collaboratively with brand founders and empowers them with the right resources to help scale their brands. It empowers brands with strong operational capabilities

High inflation impacted discretionary spends in the third quarter. As reported for DMart retail stores, FMCG and staples outperformed the general merchandise and apparel segments during October 2022 to December 2022. This deterioration due to tepid growth in apparel and general merchandise even hit the company’s margins during the quarter. Especially in December 2022, markets slowed down significantly.

By and large, inflationary pressures have hit the middle class, and therefore their discretionary spending has been limited. They prefer to postpone buying clothes. While there has not been much impact on the children’s category, the adults category has been hit. This slowdown was not just the general lull after the festival season, but even during Durga Puja or

For the third quarter Marks & Spencer’s sales grew by nine per cent.

Sales in M&S’ food business rose by 10.2 per cent at constant currency rates and 6.3 per cent on a like for like basis. Sales in the company’s clothing andhome segment increased by 8.8 per cent at constant currency rates and were up by 8.6 per cent like for like.

In addition, M&S’ international business was up by 12.5 per cent at constant currency rates. This was driven by ‘strong’ retail performance in key franchise markets in the Middle East as well as India and other owned markets. M&S food outperformed the market on volume and value in the critical four-week Christmas period for the second year running and reached its highest ever recorded market share.

Clothing and home delivered another outstanding performance, maintaining its market leadership position with its highest market share in seven years. Thanks to its unrivalled quality, innovation and growing style credentials, more customers shopped with M&S over the Christmas period than in recent years. The company saw the benefits of the acceleration in the steps taken to reshape M&S as an omnichannel retailer supported by an increasingly promising store rotation program.

Stanton Ambrose has been appointed head of marketing and PR at Celio.

A marketing professional, Stanton has over eleven years of experience in brand management, marketing strategy, customer experience and digital marketing in the retail industry. He has an impressive background and a stellar work record in the apparel industry.He has a proven track record for delivering innovation and growth to the brands he leads. Stanton has held key marketing roles across reputable companies such as Reliance Brands, Bestseller and Future Group. Having previously worked on both the digital and traditional ecosystems of the apparel world, Stanton comes with robust learnings and skills that will be pertinent to strengthening the consumer connect for Celio.

At Celio he will spearhead the men’s fashion label’s marketing department and overlook key function areas namely marketing and public relations across platforms. He will join the leadership team and lead brand strategy and integrated marketing as the brand scales rapidly and builds a stronger consumer franchise in India. He is expected to drive the agenda of strengthening the brand narrative and driving salience to the next level and building a community of consumers who resonate with the brand’s ethos.

Celio is a French men’swear brand and has a strong presence in India.

Womnen’s active wear brand Blissclub appoints top heads

Blissclub has appointed Shikha Gupta as creative director and Pamela Lee as vice president product.

Shikha Gupta joins Blissclub after a stint at Slice, one of India’s leading fintech startups, while Pamela Lee joins the brand from Lululemon Athletica where she worked in various leadership roles. Gupta will lead the creative team at Blissclub while Lee will be responsible for the product and manufacturing strategy of the brand.