The size of the Indian apparel market will touch Rs 1,30,000 crore this year, according to ASSOCHAM. DARE explores the opaqportunities
Call it the western influence, driven further by the media, but one visit to the shopping malls and you notice just how fashion conscious Indian consumers are becoming.
Brands, foreign labels and designer wear are no longer just for the niche customers- they are for the masses! With more and more retail chains opening in the country and both Indian and foreign players looking to invest in the industry, one can’t help but wonder, is this a good time to enter the apparel market?
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| Fashion sense in India is vastly segmented. What might be fashionable in north might not be in south. Similarly, fashion tastes will differ from metros to other cities across the country. Also, although it is important to look at trends, you should not give up your own unique style, while designing for apparel. — Vivek Karunakaran Fashion Designer, Viia Dysn Co. |
The stage is already set
One of the apparel industry veterans, and the Director of VIP Group of Maxwell Industries, Sunil Pathare mentioned about the change in trend that he has witnessed in the last decade. Pathare reminisces about the same, “Retail trends have not only changed at a crazy pace in the last decade, but it has also changed perceptions. The perception of the masses has changed to be in favor of the ‘Made in India’ tag; a tag that was looked down upon as a low quality product,” He adds, “India is delivering good quality and extremely fashionable garments. In fact, Indian labels are valued even abroad. It would not be wrong to say we are giving even the Chinese competition!”
On whether the stage is set for entrepreneurs, in the apparel industry, to enter and flourish, the unanimous feeling is ‘Yes’. “Lots of foreign fashion houses are making presence in India. Besides this, many international designers have begun working in conjunction with Indian designers. The timing is just right for Indian entrepreneurs to venture into this sector,” says Pathare. Even the fashion schools are extremely optimistic about the changing scenario. Kappil Kishor, lecturer of Illustration Designing in National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) emphasized, “The domestic market is becoming huge and exports are booming. A number of young designers with innovative concepts are now working for export houses, designer agencies and retail outlets.”
A market worth Rs. 1,30,000 crore
According to Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM) the apparel market in India was worth Rs. 1,11,000 crore in March 2007. As for 2008, their projected estimate is a whopping Rs. 1,30,000 crore.
With ‘brands’ such as Levi’s, Gucci, Lee Cooper, etc becoming a hot favorite with the youth today, the branded apparel industry touched Rs.30,000 crore in 2006-2007. In the same period, ‘designer labels’ such as Ritu Kumar, Satya Paul, etc accounted for Rs. 270 crore. The market of designer labels is expected to hit Rs. 750 crore by the year 2012.
India has an added edge over many other countries and hence the potential to grow much more than that. The fact that we are the third largest cotton producing country, rich in textiles and have a flood of young and talented designers coming out of institutes like NIFT, National Institute of Fashion Design (NIFD) and Pearl Academy of Fashion should hint towards the unexploited potential.
 Ritu Kumar's early days in fashion design |
| "I began my work with four hand-block printers and two tables, in a small village near Calcutta forty years ago". She traveled to Rajasthan, U.P, and Delhi looking for fabrics and prints that had a traditional aesthetic to them. At the time, there were only a few textile museums in the country and there was very little study material available. The word designer was not even in the national vocabulary. Her first exhibition of saris, which used designs from India’s renowned print schools was held in Calcutta. Out of the thirty, Ritu only managed to sell about a dozen. Reflecting back on the day, she says, “ It taught me my first lesson. Never try and design without a vision, which is not based on contemporary needs. Use the idiom, motif, the design and all that that made that school of design so important; but work it for the present day.” Coming a long way from then, Ritu now produces some of the country’s most exquisite garments and accessories in cotton, silk and leather. She was the first woman to introduce the boutique culture in India under the brand name ‘Ritu’. Her sub brand, Ritu Kumar Label, redefines traditional handwork to meet the changing needs of the new generation. The inspiration of these garments is basic Indian motifs, prints and embroideries but they are mingled with a wide range of western silhouettes. “I believe in going deep into the roots of every design to find out its relevance in the present context. I also try and visualize whether a woman would look elegant in my designs. It’s a lot of hard work. But then this is a very competitive field and unless you put in that extra effort you will lag far behind.” "Never try and design without a vision" |
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I am a research scholar and have based my work on fashion and apparel design as entrepreneurial avenue. I am working more towards entrepreneur education and support provided by NGOs. My work is limited to South karnataka and Coimbatore district. I am in search of valuable literature show casting the NGOs work in the area of fashion and apparel design in these two areas. The main aim of my work is to explore more entrepreneurail avenues in the field of fashion design. My primary work shows that most of these agenices have limited their training to pattern making and stitching. I wish to generate a model according to the market requirements and include it under the traiing module to be implemented by the selected NGOs.
In this regard I request you to provide me wiht some valuble literature in the area of my research. Ritu Kumar who has started her unit with four hand block prints is a real insprational source.
Kindly help me.
Thank you.
Regards,
Veena
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