Off late ‘mass market luxury’ is an often repeated phrase. And the reason it’s in the limelight is because high street global brands like Zara and Forever 21 are doing spectacularly good business… especially considering that their entry into the Indian market is fairly recent.
Where does this leave Indian designers who’ve been around for much longer?
For starters, leaving out a handful, not many Indian designers have taken the prêt market as seriously as it deserves. In fact, in my opinion only two Indian designers have realized and cashed in on prêt … Ritu Kumar and Anita Dongre have presence in the segment across the country. Their business models have evolved from being suppliers of wedding fare to a select few… to creators of everyday wear for whoever wants a piece of mass produced design with a designer tag. What they’ve done is mass prêt wear. Achieving that scale and those price points isn’t easy, so one can understand if others have wanted to stay away from the mass market… besides the challenge of achieving scale some design gurus believe in developing a brand/product that’s considered more premium…. Not accessible to all.
But here’s my problem.
How many designers are efficiently filling the gap that exists between prêt and couture…? What some term as ‘mass market luxury’. To my mind not many. At least that’s not what makes their core business.
I was speaking recently with Sunil Sethi, the President of the Fashion Design Council of India… In his opinion Indian designers usually enjoy a much larger stature than their actual business…. Mr. Sethi was candid enough to share that several designers back off from prêt because it’s a harder business to run… they’d rather stick to couture where though volumes are small, margins are fantastic.
Fashion Designer Narendra Kumar Ahmed may be an exception. He has very recently launched a prêt line to compete with high street brands which is priced between 3,500to 9,000 rupees.
Narendra says, “People want clothes that they can wear every other day and look fashionable and they don’t have to pay an arm and leg for these clothes. The difference between a high street brand and my own is that mine would be more customized; it’s friendlier to the local tastes and people. It has a fashion edge with the name of a designer attached to it. I think getting a designer tag at high street prices is the crux of expanding your design business.”
True that. I mean if I can get a slightly more customized shirt with a designer label, I’d think its more value for money than a shirt at similar price points from a high street brand… which by the way I’m likely to see someone else wearing too! So in a way the fact that an Indian designer can’t mass produce to match a high street player, works in their favour! That slightly more exclusive feeling is priceless isn’t it?
The sad truth though is that we don’t have many designer options at competitive price points. So perhaps you’ll probably still end up buying the premium range of products at a high street brand. At least until the time more designers think of getting out of their comfort zone and realize that fashion is also an everyday business.
