Designer Payal Singhal’s eponymous brand has launched wedding venue design service ‘PS Wedding’. PS Weddings offers a full venue design service including table designs, custom seating areas, wallpaper, flooring, and all of the trimmings. The aesthetic matches Payal Singhal’s bright, bohemian clothing with floral motifs, mixed patterns, and whimsical details.

Payal Singhal has also collaborated with Joey and Pooh again this season for a line of embellished hairbands. This limited edition collection injects a generous dose of happiness to customers’ wardrobe. The brand has become known for its wide range of collaborations with clothing and lifestyle brands. Payal Singhal also recently launched a new collaborative women’s capsule line on Indya’s e-commerce store.

Gujarat Spinners Association has assured Tirupur garment units of supplying the required yarn. As per Indian Express, the assurance was given during a virtual meet organized by AEPC with members of the association recently.

Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) had organized the meeting to discuss availability of yarn for knitwear exporters. During the meet, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) Chairman T Rajkumar said around 30 to 40 per cent of total hosiery yarn produced in India was being consumed by units in Tiruppur.

Also, he invited spinning mills in Gujarat to tap the potential in Tiruppur AEPC chairman Sakthivel said Tiruppur was a good market and invited Gujarat Spinners to join hands with knitwear exporters for sustainable growth. Saurin Parikh, President, Gujarat Spinners Association said for the last 20 - 25 days prices had reduced and many countries, except Bangladesh, stopped import from India.

To be held on July 3 and 4, wedding-themed business-to-customer fair Bride & Groom will bring together 108 clothing, events, beauty, and lifestyle brands at Chanakyapuri in New Delhi. The two-day shopping fair will have 25,000 visitors and showcase products and services from 108 exhibitors. Its 10Times events page informs, the fair will feature a wide range of occasion wear for brides and grooms, as well as guests.

The event will be organized by ITE Group India, and feature noted brands including Anju Modi, Abhishek Dutta, Samaira Jewels, Ozel Designs, and Prem Studio, among others. The event aims to be a one-stop-shop for the late summer and autumn wedding seasons.

The pan-India lockdown and restrictions on social gatherings have badly affected the Indian wedding industry. Shopping fairs and trade shows aims to bring the industry back on its demand by tapping the pent up demand in 2021.

Designer Anita Dongre has launched her new Spring/Summer 2021 collection in collaboration with Tencel™ by Lenzing Group. Titled, ‘Sounds of the Forest’ the collection showcases Tencel™ branded fibers originating from sustainably managed forests.

It uses renewable and biodegradable materials featuring light and easy ready to wear that take after the whimsical beauty of the woodlands with harmonies of flora and fauna reflected in patterns and prints. The color spectrums take inspirations from pastels of early mornings and deep indigos of midnight. The silhouettes created are perfect for a getaway celebrations or beachy pre-wedding ceremonies.

Tencel™ Modal fibers are derived from sustainably managed forests and manufactured using an award-winning closed-loop process that produces fibers with a significantly lower carbon footprint and thus helps lower the ecological balance. With features like smoothness, breathability, color retention and biodegradability, this is the perfect alternative option for both brands and consumers moving towards eco-fashion.

Tencel™ is the textile specialty brand under The Lenzing Group that covers textile specialty product fiber offerings for apparel and home. The TENCEL™ product brand portfolio defines a new evolutionary step in terms of sustainability, functional benefits, natural comfort and caters for distinctive everyday usage or application.

One of India’s the premier lingerie brands, Clovia claims to have negligible rate of new product failure. The brand can launch new products with a high degree of confidence, affirms Pankaj Vermani, CEO. It recently launched Bra-Bot, an online AI-based chatbot which guides customers to the correct product while advising sizing Clovia’s proprietary tool CloviaCurve ™Fit Test.

The bot helps customers make their purchase besides updating order and delivery status for brands to guide them on policies, FAQs, or size suggestions. The response to this chatbot has been exceptional with almost two lakh customers engaging within 30 days of launch, Vermani told Analytics India Magazine. The bot currently handles over 35 per cent customer queries automatically, while the rest are passed on to a support executive.

Right product for every customer

A 100 per cent data driven brand, Clovia was launched with a vision to provide right fitting lingerie to every Indian woman. The company manufactures and sells premium fashion lingerie, innerwear, nightwear, and shapewear. Its user profiling model processes over 150 million data points across 2.8 million users daily. This data also helps Clovia adopt a highly agile and optimized manufacturing model.

Clovia also regularly updates its inventory. Around 80 per cent of its inventory is less than 45 days old, informs Vermani. This allows the brand to serve all its online and offline touchpoints. The offline stores regularly update price, fits and sizes with data-backed shelf population algorithms. Algorithms also help Clovia choose its courier partners. The company chooses its franchise services from over 20,000 pin codes and different pricing slabs, which helps it ensure back-to-back integrations to gather information on current location of their shipped goods, adds Vermani.

Handling data with a human touch

Clovia advises brands to consider the human factor while handling data or using technology. Vermani says, the end user should be able to locate the data easily. Clovia consolidates all its data into one data point called feedback score which enables designers to check a single feedback score for a product and make decisions accordingly. The system also alerts quality or marketing or content teams on identifying a problem.

One tools that Clovia integrates at the frontend and backend is the Clovia curve fit test which has helped almost 600,000 women so far to pick the right size. Clovia has had a robust customer engagement on social platforms over the years. The brand is accessible to customers not only through its website, on-call customer service, and app but also through direct engagement via Whatsapp. It aims to double its customer base next year by foraying into new product lines. Its data analytics and predictive models will help the brand optimize its capital investments and keep risks under control, concludes Vermani.

Handcrafted jeans made from khadi are latest innovation in the denim industry. As per a report by the Apparel Resources, a 100 per cent swadeshi brand launched in 2016, Desitude offers handcrafted jeans and other premium quality apparel and accessories made from hand-spun and hand-woven khadi. These denims maintain the spirit and purity of khadi not only in their design but also in production processes and tags.

Khadi denims are a proof of consumers’ demand for eco-friendly clothing, says Siddharth Mohan Nair, Founder, Desitude. However, their making involves a lot of handmade processes which hike their prices, he adds.

Lack of stretch, environmental hazards pose challenges

Another problem with khadi denim is the lack of stretch which prevents consumers, especially women, from buying them. Their huge prices are also a big deterrent. Denim is considered to have a substantial impact on the environment. A single pair of jeans requires 20,000 litre of water to make. Around 70 per cent of Asia’s rivers and lakes have been contaminated by the 2.5 billion gallons of wastewater produced by the textile industry. Therefore, it has become necessary for the denim industry to use eco-friendly production processes.

Eco-friendly materials for transparent production

International denim brands are also looking at ethical denim production. They are trying to make production processes as transparent as possible by adapting eco-friendly processes and fabrics. For example, Everlane designs heavier denims that can be snapped back into place after each wear, requiring less washing. These denims are made at a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified factory in Vietnam that relies on solar power, recycles 98 per cent of its water and uses reverse osmosis to filter the remaining 2 per cent into clean drinking water.

Launched in 2001, first organic denim brand Kuyichi uses eco-friendly materials including organic cotton to make its denims. This cuts the brand’s carbon emissions by 60 per cent compared to conventional cotton. The Dutch brand is also a member of the Fair Wear Foundation and supports fair working conditions for all workers of its suppliers.

Manufacturer of zero-waste, vegan denims, ELV Denim transforms old discarded denim into modern and sophisticated denim. The brand manufactures all its products in local factories of East London. Through its emphasis on local production, the brand promotes an ethical lifestyle amongst its consumers.

High maintenance lowers demand

Despite these initiatives, Nair expects the future of eco-friendly denims to remain bleak. The pandemic has reduced consumer’s purchasing power, and the ability to experiment with their wardrobes. Eco-friendly denims are difficult to maintain and repair which further lowers their acceptability amongst consumers. However, Nair believes, sooner or later, consumers are sure to switch to environment-friendly clothing.

Lenders to Future Retail are hopeful of approving a debt recast plan by the end of this month, with the final draft being circulated among lenders for approval, two bankers aware of the development said.

The plan will entail a two-year moratorium on repayments without any changes in the prevailing interest rate, the bankers said on condition of anonymity.

This is similar to what lenders have also agreed on for Future Lifestyle Fashions Ltd, a group company that runs the Central and Brand Factory outlets.

The recast will be done under the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) special window for pandemic-hit borrowers.

Future Retail owes banks Rs 6,278 crore, showed data from Care Ratings. On an aggregate basis, Future group owes $3 billion in loans, and lenders are trying to figure out a way to ensure the least possible hit on asset quality.

The group also owes mutual funds that had invested in securities sold by group entities, including Rivaaz Trade Ventures, NuFuture Digital India and Future Ideas Co.

The industry has to restart sooner or later, emphasized designer Payal Singhal at the recently concluded Lakme Fashion Week. For her, fashion weeks are a way to bring in new business to support her staff of 150. She organized a live, in-person show to launch Indian athleisure line called Kismet. The show featured mask-less models to a socially distanced audience seated in their respective cars.

Organized jointly by the Fashion Design Council of India and Rise Worldwide from March 16-21, 2021, Lakme Fashion Week showcased over 30 designers including Anamika Khanna, Ritu Kumar, Shantanu & Nikhil, Suneet Varma, Masaba Gupta, Huemn, Payal Pratap, Ruchika Sachdeva, Gauri & Nainika and Akshat Bansal. The event reemphasized the relevance of fashion weeks as the largest lifestyle property in terms of the quantum of business or investments and sponsorships, says Jaspreet Chandok, Head-Lifestyle Business, Rise Worldwide.

Mirroring current times

One of the highlights was the The Bodice show by designer Ruchika Sachdeva which mirrored the current troubled times with its long dresses and optical pleats. Designer Payal Pratap’s collection featured floral patterns against a dark background that celebrated the positivity in her consumers. Her collection included long skirts and dresses with longer jackets, their shape and silhouette tailored to follow the body contours.

The virtual shows by designers Anamika Khanna and PELLA by Priyanka Ella Lorena Lama celebrated the gloom surrounding current instability. However, they also highlighted the creativity emerging out of it.

Playing with the idea of evanescence, designer Khanna showcased a collection featuring dhoti drapes hemmed in flat metallic embroidery to armour-inspired version in scallop beads. Her tailored coats made with traditional materials and accentuated and a bomber jacket-meets-shrug pair reminded viewers of intricate Kutchi handwork.

Massa Gupta’s collection featured a range of knotted crop tops, cape blouses, dresses, and duets of saree-blouses and track pants-hooded jumpers drizzled over in a combination of signature prints; the holy cow, lipstick bullets, palm, toffee wrappers, etc. The collection was a compilation of old hits rehashed from familiar styles and trimmings.

Payal Singhal’s street-meets-sportswear collection focused on young and unpretentious styles. Made from fabrics recycled from PET bottles, courtesy R-Elan, the collection included dhoti-saris, kurta-jogger sets and ribbed crop top-jogger saris finished in a twist of thread and wool embroidery and the label’s characteristic tassel and pom-pom details.

Brand Heumn designing outwear for quite some time launched a collection of oversized sportswear crafted in homegrown cotton and silk with couture-level 3D embroidery, embossing that had a cool looseness and coarseness to it. T0he rise of work-from-home clothing trend pushed it to create more responsible range, says Pranav Misra.

Healthy growth prospects

A report by the Boston Consulting Group estimates, the Indian fashion industry will be worth Rs 5,781 billion by 2024, despite a 27 per cent drop in size in 2020. The industry is expected to drive many social changes, says Misra, Co-founder and Designer, Huemn. As the industry moves away from its normal mode of functioning, stakeholders need to reset rules to focus on telling stories that help reemphasize the importance of fashion.

The growth of e-commerce volumes in Tier II and III cities in India is outpacing that in Tier-I cities, says an ICICI securities report. As per the report, in Q4 CY20, the volume share of smaller cities in India's e-commerce market increased to 46 per cent from 32 per cent YoY. Online spending per customer in Tier II and III cities also improved to 43 per cent share from last quarter, raising hopes of a sustainable last mile delivery economics emerging for the industry yet hyperlocal last mile small parcel deliveries remain economically as challenging as ever.

The report continues to see emergence of end-to-end logistics contracts with Bajaj Electricals and Flipkart with Mahindra Logistics. The trend, while accreting value to the service provider, also gains currency as emergence of multiple channels is increasing supply chain challenge and risks. The report noted that post GST implementation, a gradual move towards organized large format 'grade A+/grade A++' warehousing is leading to significant business opportunities for sector participants.

ICICI Securities, however, sees challenges with asset heavy road transportation players and it said that many transportation models are at the risk of not reinventing, especially as SME business environment recovers and new star-tup ecosystem starts to aggressively target the same.

E-commerce firms expect Maharashtra’s new COVID-related restrictions to have minimal impact on their operations.

As per Economic Times, the Maharashtra government ordered delivery and supply chain staff of e-commerce companies to either get vaccinated or carry a negative RT-PCR test report, starting April 10

Hari Menon, Co-founder and CEO, BigBasket, said, the company has reached out to the state authorities to understand if they would be organizing camps for mass testing of their workforce, or if they’d give any special permission to allow vaccination of last-mile delivery agents.

Grofers said it was adhering to all the COVID-19 protocols and guidelines laid down by the government. The retailer is conducting regular testing for all Its frontline team members. Online food ordering companies Swiggy and Zomato, which have a combined workforce of around 55,000 delivery agents in the state, have requested the government to extend the timelines for RT-PCR test for delivery partners.

Swiggy is also urging its delivery partners to get RT-PCR test done and that it will cover the cost. It had announced last week that it will cover the vaccination cost of its 200,000 delivery partners.

However, these companies might rejig their delivery personnel deployment after gauging market demand over the next week, as working hours for restaurants have been restricted.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, the pandemic is forcing Indian retailers to reshape their business operations and become more agile and build capacities. The Economic Times CEO Breakfast presented by Accenture India and emphasized on several such learnings from the pandemic.

Omnichannel to be the way forward

The discussion opened with Anurag Gupta, Accenture emphasizing on the importance of building more agility, resilience and capability into India’s retail businesses. Amit Jain, L’Oréal India highlighted the growing preference for brands with a purpose. He also underlined the significance of additional retail channels such as, kerbside deliveries, social commerce, etc.

Lalit Agarwal, V-Mart Retail explained his company’s efforts to maintain balance sheet and inventory levels during the pandemic. He said, though customers in smaller cities had the money to make purchases during the pandemic, they were reluctant to do so due to their fear of catching the virus. Abhishek Ganguly, Puma India and Southeast Asia, said though Indian retailers were hit the hardest in the first quarter of 2020, they made a successful comeback in the third and fourth quarters.

Saving for the rainy day

Shital Mehta, Lifestyle International warned retailers though other formats like Max had crossed their pre-COVID sales, malls are still not performing at the required levels. Shailesh Chaturvedi, Arvind Fashions therefore urged retailers to focus on casual clothing as wedding wear and formal wear are likely to take some time to pick up.

The discussion ended with Vineet R Ahuja, Accenture India advising retailers to conserve cash and staying healthy. He said, this would give them a competitive advantage and help sustain over time.