One of India’s leading fashion and beauty destination, Shoppers Stop has launched a beauty talent show for makeup artists, beauty advisories and beauty influencers – EyeStoppers 2020.

This talent hunt is aimed at giving all professional makeup artists across the country a platform to be in the spotlight and showcase their favourite trends to audiences on the digital universe.

With a highly accomplished judging panel consisting of none other than the ultimate Bollywood diva – Malaika Arora, and award-winning celebrity makeup artist Daniel Bauer, your looks will be judged by the best! Winner of Mr Gay India 2014 Sushant Divgikar will also assist in the jury process.

Leading influencers like Aashna Shroff, named Most Engaging Influencer 2019 by Cosmopolitan, accomplished VJ and actor Benafsha Soonawala, singers and sister duo Prakriti and Sukriti Kakar, will also help identify the best of the best.

Shoppers Stop employs more than 1,400 makeup artists and beautyaAdvisors that are trained to create looks for consumers and are popularly referred to for their expertise on the latest trends and products in the beauty space.

The Fashion Design Council of India has collaborated with Pretture, a cloud app to launch a virtual B2B platform titled ‘Designer Showroom’ at the upcoming Lotus Make-up India Fashion Week (LMIFW) spring/summer 2021 that will be held from October 14 to 18.

As per a Fashion Network report, the one-of-a-kind virtual Designer Showroom will enable domestic and international buyers to interact with designers virtually and place orders. It will provide designers with a virtual stall space where they can upload their collection images, line sheets, campaign video/imagery, and conduct virtual meetings with their buyers.

The showroom will provide designers with a cost-effective and flexible platform with a 60-degree approach to initiate secure interactions with buyers anywhere in the world.

LMIFW spring/summer 2021 will be attended by designers like Varun Bahl, Tarun Tahiliani, Suneet Varma, Shivan & Narresh, Shantanu & Nikhil, Rohit Gandhi + Rahul Khanna, Rina Dhaka, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Payal Jain, Nitin Bal Chauhan, Namrata Joshipura, Geisha Designs, Dhi, Ashish Soni, Abhishek Gupta, etc.

Landmark Group-owned Max Fashion has partnered Flipkart-owned fashion marketplace Myntra to sell its range of affordable apparel on the online shopping platform that has a consumer base of 25 million monthly active users ahead of the festive season

With this partnership, Max will have a wider market access for its garments and accessories and Myntra will target the sweet spot for value-conscious customers across tiers to strengthen its position in the online fashion ecosystem. The fashion etailer will sell curated products from Max Fashion as bundled value packs under Rs 1000 price point across categories.

Max has 375 stores in the country which sells about 100 million garments and accessories for adults and kids through omnichannel presence. The association with Myntra will enable Max to access the etailer’s tech capabilities, customer base and reach untapped markets and pincodes.

Max has been ramping up its omnichannel presence in the country in the wake of the pandemic. Last week Max partnered Myntra’s parent company Flipkart to sell its products on the platform, a move that will help the e-commerce major offer an increased portfolio of affordable fashion and lifestyle products ahead of the festive season. Max products are also sold on Flipkart's rival Amazon India.

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A study by Forrester says, fashion portal Koovs.com holds top honors as India's best ecommerce portal. Koovs also scored at least 3 percentage points more than the next digital retailer Flipkart.

In addition, the digital retail industry had the lowest industry average score, behind the auto manufacturers, credit card issuers and banks.

In general, seven in 10 customers had good experiences with Indian brands -- with 10 per cent even reporting having excellent experiences despite Covid-19. Even though the pandemic has led to a dip in consumer spending and overall sentiment, three brands -- Toyota Kirloskar, Mahindra & Mahindra, and American Express -- provided consistently excellent experiences to their customers.

Based on a survey of more than 7,000 customers, Forrester's CX Index benchmarked the CX quality of 28 brands across four industries, including automakers, banks, credit card issuers, and digital retailers. In all four industries, the survey revealed that the ranked brands are unable to differentiate from the competition.

As a result, the brands are unable to realise the full benefits of consumer experience, which include growing revenue faster, charging more for products, and forgiveness for any missteps.

Similarly, in the auto industry, 83 per cent of customers who felt confident during their service experience plan to return to the same brand dealership for their next service, 81 per cent plan to spend more on the brand's services, and 84 per cent will advocate for that dealership.

A report by RedSeer estimates that festive sales this year are expected to touch $7 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) as compared to $3.8 billion in the same period last year. E-commerce companies are making significant investments ahead of time to ramp up their capacity to be able to handle the spike in orders.

Amazon India has enabled over one lakh local shops, kiranas and neighborhood stores across the country through its various initiatives, reports the Hindu Business Line.More than 20,000 offline retailers, kiranas and local shops from Local Shops on Amazon program will participate in “Great Indian Festival” for the first time, selling various items like daily essentials, large appliances and home decor products, a statement said.

The integration of Amazon’s programs with one lakh-plus ubiquitous neighborhood stores - for selling online, to help customers buy online, to make deliveries and enable contactless payments - is a testament of the adaptability and inventiveness of Indian entrepreneurs

The Amazon Pay Smart Store format is currently enabling more than 15,000 neighborhood shops to provide a contactless shopping experience to their customers. With this format, customers can scan the store’s QR code using the Amazon app to explore the products available in the store. After selecting the products, they wish to buy they can check out with Amazon Pay, which gives them a choice of using UPI, balance, or credit or debit cards. This is available in over 25 cities including Coimbatore, Mysore, Siliguri, Mumbai and Delhi.

Recently, Flipkart onboarded more than 50,000 kirana shops to strengthen its supply chain and delivery capabilities ahead of the upcoming festival season. With this, Flipkart iexpanded its kirana onboarding program to make deliveries to customers in more than 850 cities. The etailer will host its annual “The Big Billion Days” sale from October 16-21, while Amazon.in is expected to announce its sale dates next week.

Lakmé Fashion Week will open with a return of its ‘Sustainable Fashion Day’ and close with a ‘Lakmé Absolute Grand Finale’.

Lakmé Fashion Week will kick off on October 21 with a sustainable fashion showcasek. Along with digital showcases by a number of sustainable brands including Raw Mango and Gaurang, the INIFD GenNext design challenge winners will present their winning designs.

This year’s Lakmé Fashion Week GenNext winners are Bhumika and Minakshi Ahluwalia of the label Mishé; Anmol Sharma of Dhatu Design Studio; and Aarushi Kilawat of The Loom Art, the fashion week announced on its Facebook page. Due to the current circumstances, the GenNext finalists presented their designs to the jury via video call and the winners were then announced online. The designers are also receiving mentoring from industry leaders in the run up to their showcases at the fashion week.

Day two will be a second Sustainable Fashion Day. This is the first time that the fashion week has dedicated more than one day to sustainable design showing its increasing importance in the industry. Day three will feature a podcast, makeup masterclass, and fashion shows by designers including Mishru and Amit Aggarwal.

Day four will feature showcases by Jayanti Reddy, Disha Patil, and Kunal Rawal among others and also feature a press launch for an upcoming ‘Boat x Masaba’ collaboration. Finally, day five will feature a sneaker showcase with multi-brand retailer Ajio and culminate in a ‘Lakmé Absolute Grand Finale’, with more details to be released soon.

COVID-19 outbreak has affected not just the textile industry but the entire economy. Shutting of retail stores wiped away businesses. Around 33 million people from across the world have suffered due to the pandemic, said Gautam Singhania, Chairman and Managing Director, Raymond Group in a recent media interview. It has also affected MSME and daily workers. To survive, one needs to adopt the ‘Be Indian, Buy Indian’ policy, he opines. And manufacturers should focus on the growing domestic market and shift production base to India.

Robust sales post lockdown

Retail sales have been increasing every week since the lifting of the COVID-19 lockdown. Earlier too, Raymond would organize company sale during the shraddha season but this year, the company’s sales during the season have been higher than previous year. There has been a week-on-week increase in sales in September itself.

Singhania believes, apparel manufacturing will increase when consumption in the country go up. For this, the economy needs to open up first as the lockdown is hurting both employment and manufacturing in the country. In the last 25-30 years, stronger brands have grown stronger. Twenty-five years ago, the Indian textile fabric sector had 20 brands. Today many brands in the top 20 brands are from the Raymond Group, he adds.

Social distancing vs total lockdown

Warning against a repeat of total lockdown, Singhania says, European countries are focusing on social distancing rather lockdowns. Therefore, the government should opt for total lockdown only if the virus spreads beyond control. Shedding light on the growing resentment against Chinese products not just in India but across the world, Singhania says, earlier, apparel manufacturers would readily source products from China but now they plan to diversify their sourcing options. They no longer want to source products from China. This situation offers India a golden opportunity to a favorite sourcing destination of manufacturers. If we do not capitalize on this opportunity now, we might lose it forever, he says. Broadening horizons

Spreading its wings post COVID-19, Raymond has just completed its first real estate project. The group is also making FMCG products like floor sanitizer, surface sanitizer, and hand sanitizer, among others. Singhania feels, PPE offers a great opportunity for the group and it plans to capitalize on this.

Media reports suggest, two global funds; Singapore’s GIC and US-based TPG will invest Rs 7,350 crore in Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL) to acquire 1.6 per cent stake in the company.

GIC will invest Rs 5,512 crore to purchase 1.22 per cent in the company while TPG Capital Asia fund will pick 0.41 per cent of stake for Rs 1,837 crore, valuing RRVL before the investment at Rs 4.28 lakh crore.

The duo will take the number of international funds making a beeline to invest in the holding company of Reliance Retail to seven and the total foreign direct investment into the country’s largest retailer to nearly Rs 36,200 crore to purchase nearly 7.3 per cent in the company.

In the last three weeks, half-a-dozen other global funds including Silver Lake, KKR, General Atlantic, Mubadala have already announced investments worth billions of dollars into Reliance Retail, that operates 12,000 brick-and-mortar stores. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund Mubadala Investment Co has announced investments worth Rs 6,247 crore for a 1.4 per cent stake investment in the entity.

Liva has successfully concluded yet another buyer seller meet at its LAPF Studio in Tiruppur in association with Tiruppur Exporters’ Association (TEA). A ten–day meet showcased more than 150 innovations done by esteemed LAPF partners.

Recently launched Antimicrobial Viscose fibre based fabrics received an overwhelming response. Buyers appreciated the concept of injecting an antimicrobial agent at the fibre manufacturing stage, making the antimicrobial effectiveness an integral part of the fabric.

Buyers also showed interest in eco friendly, sustainable fabrics made using Liva Reviva and Livaeco apart from collections made with Birla Excel, Birla Modal, Birla Viscose, and Spunshades by Birla Cellulose.

Sourcing professionals and designers representing Tom Tailor, Marc O’Polo, Redefined & OVS Sourcing, Eastman exports, Greetings Knitwear, Best Cotton Mills, Esstee exports and others have attended this meet making it a grand success. Sampling has been initiated for the requirements placed.

Partners from across 35 textile hubs such as Erode, Tirupur, New Delhi, Ichalkaranji, Nagpur, Mumbai, Surat and Ahmedabad participated in the meet. Happy with the response, requests for another meet have already started coming in.

This was the first innovation meet post lockdown at the LAPF Studio, Jaipur, and the Studio took all safety measures such as temperature check, frequent sanitization and social distancing during the meet.

Customers had pre-booked their appointments to maintain social distancing which enabled the hosts to pay exclusive attention to each of the visiting customers.

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