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Indian expert asks designers to tap retail market

India's largest annual fashion extravaganza, showcasing works of top designers, kicked off in Bombay on Monday with an industry expert urging designers to tap the huge potential in the country's retail market.

Eighty per cent of readymade garments in the country are controlled by multi-brand outlets and budding designers should also use this route to market their lines, leading textile consultant V M Kulkarni said.

"The readymade industry (in India) will take off at a terrific speed. There is big potential to exploit," Kulkarni told designers on the first day of the week-long programme organised by the Fashion Design Council of India.

The event with 44 leading designers, which will include glitzy ramp shows and trend forecasts, will focus on pret-a-porter or affordable ready-to-wear by big-name designers as well as an upmarket range of clothes.

Kulkarni, who helped establish the Flying Machine brand of jeans, said designers would have to decide whether they wanted to continue catering to a tiny elite segment or tap the huge potential that India's one billion population provided.

The elite, upmarket segment that designers target is just one per cent of the country's total garment industry which India's leading magazine India Today pegged at Rs 400 billion.

Kulkarni, who advises leading textile company Madura Coats and the Shopper's Stop chain of stores, said designers should understand the business of retailing since even small towns were shifting to readymade garments.

Two decades ago, haute couture was a word that barely existed in the Indian vocabulary and fashion stopped at ethnic home-spun cotton outfits made by neighbourhood tailors.

India's high fashion clothing saw a boom in the nineties when designers Ritu Kumar, Rohit Bal, Tarun Tahiliani, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla took Indian styles to the international map.

But haute couture is largely restricted to ramp shows and select outlets for a niche clientele.

Kulkarni said that though the menswear segment was the largest in India only three companies do a business of over one billion rupees.

"Focus on a narrow range of products. If you are good at something, stick to it," said Kulkarni.

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