Expansion up the designer sleeve

The business of fashion should be business. And on day one of Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, some domestic buyers were doing just that even as the frocks came prancing down the ramp with slightly sluggish energy levels. Designers are talking business, which is good given that they rarely talk numbers. Says Sanjay Kapoor, managing director, Genesis Colors which owns the high fashion brands like Satya Paul and a multi-brand fashion store called Samsara, “For the financial year 2007-2008 we are planning to open 10 Satya Paul stores, which means that we will require 18, 000 sq feet carpet area just for one brand. Then, we will be opening five Samsara stores which is another 15,000 sq feet carpet area and three stores for luxury brands that we are bringing to India.” Talking more figures Kapoor says that a typical Satya Paul store would cost about a crore each and the company has earmarked about Rs 15 crore for retail expansion in this financial year. But fashion retailing isn’t a lost cause in India. Kapoor talks of a 100 per cent year-on-year growth in the last three years. Ritu Kumar, who has 28 retail outlets in India, of which six are store-in-stores, is looking for more space for her prêt line, Label. she says: “Finding store space is not easy and real estate is expensive.” Adds Amrish Kumar, director, Ritu Kumar: “Real estate inflation is making margins very difficult to accomplish. Fashion needs multi-brands outlet support and the available infrastructure doesn’t support fashion retail.” Other than space crunch, the fashion retail industry also faces a challenge in terms of trained manpower. Says Yatan Ahluwalia, director and head operations, Y&E Style Media, “There aren’t enough trained people who know how to sell luxury and fashion at the retail level. People at many luxury counters don’t know what they are selling.” Ahluwalia who has brought two brands, HOM and Susan’s Soaps & More, to India finds that he has to spend under Rs 20,000 on training a single sales person so that he can sell luxury and fashion the way it is done worldwide. But whatever be the case, it’s evident that fashion has come a long way from when it all began — with a handful of tailors and a lot of hype.

Courtesy: EconomicTimes
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