29 December 2021, Mumbai:

Since opening its first atelier in Paris during the late '70s, fashion brand Alaïa has been revered in the industry for designing clothes that highlight the shape of a woman's body. From the brand's use of luxe yet flexible fabrics to its figure-hugging silhouettes, very few capture curves quite like the storied maison.

Today, under the creative direction of designer Pieter Mulier, the iconic brand is lending that same iconic approach to a new collection of swimwear, which the brand shares with BAZAAR exclusively.

Paying homage to its roots, the Parisian house has created a nostalgic yet relevant lineup of bathing suits. Some of the collection's instantly recognizable details include studding, eyelet, zips, leather, and it's signature open-knit design.

As for the product itself, fans can expect retro silhouettes like high-cut one-pieces and bolero-style "swimming" jackets, which offer a chic alternative to classic cover-ups. Other items include a two-piece bandeau bikini with open-knit cutouts and a longline midi skirt to match.

Each style comes in white, sky blue, dark green, maroon, and, of course, red.

Harper Bazaar 

(The news article has not been edited by DFU Publications staff)

Dear Reader, we at DFU Publications are committed to providing the latest news updates on trade development and insights, to keep our readers informed. Stay tuned. Subscribe to our newsletter.

25 November 2021, Mumbai:

What builds a brand such that it lasts forever and keeps growing as the ages pass, is no small task. Kankatala is one such saree brand that has been able to reach such heights. The company takes pride in having a loyal customer base through generations who return to their stores for every occasion.

Despite having such a long-standing player in the fashion retail sector, the 78-year-old brand has opened only a few outlets here in India. The company ascribes its conservative and traditional approach as the reason behind taking so long to expand to North India.

“So as a family we are very conservative in our business and careful in how we grow – we want to grow very sustainably,” said Anirudh Kankatala, Director, Kankatala Sarees. “We are very well planned and well-calculated in our expansion. We had our second store expansion only in 2000 and since then we have opened in Rajahmundry, Vijayawada, and Kakinada. And, only 3 years back we opened in Hyderabad – that was our first expansion outside Andhra Pradesh,” he added.

Established in 1943 by the late Kankatala Appalaraju, the business has now grown to 11 stores in Andhra Pradesh, several other cities, and has a strong online presence. In 1982, Kankatala Mallikharjuna Rao, Anirudh’s father, popularly known as Mallik, the second generation Kankatala, entered the business. There was a major turnaround, with the opening of the first plush Kankatala store, which was Visakhapatnam's first air-conditioned shop.

Retail Strategy

The company has a very single-dimensional approach in terms of retail strategy. Anirudh stated, “So, actually as a retail strategy, we don’t try to differentiate based on stores, we try to maintain our USP and don’t change the product as per the city.”

It is indeed true that when a brand comes to Delhi, it is assumed that people will expect to go there for Banarasis (popular North-Indian Saree made in Varanasi) more than Kanjivaram (silk sari made in the Kanchipuram region in Tamil Nadu) because it is north of India.

“However, we as a brand believe that many people know Kankatala for Kanjivaram - people have been shopping at Kankatala because they like Kanjivaram. We decided not to change the strategy of the brand catering to our customers,” Anirudh further added.

The company is planning to open more stores in the north, in (Mumbai) Maharashtra, one in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, and Kolkata.

Building Online Presence

In this technology-driven age, much of the competition is on how strong the brand’s presence is online. Being deeply traditional in its approach, the brand had obviously faced tough challenges to transition to online.

Anirudh stated, “We did have a lot of challenges to take a traditional business online. For us it is 1,000 products, it is only one quantity, and once it is sold it is gone. Then we need to take the new pictures and upload them.

So I have to train my team to understand e-commerce and go online.” “And, we are from Visakhapatnam, so finding talent to go digital was also a challenge. The family support was there to help us expand online,” Anirudh further added.

The brand took almost one year (in 2017) to start the online website and since then it is reported to be growing at 30 percent YoY. In fact, the company attributes its online explorations as the reason behind the company’s growth.

“One of the main reasons for the growth is because we started online, social media and shipping. Then we have realized that there is so much potential for our brand in Hyderabad and Bangalore.

Then we have realized the potential to take Handlooms to the capitals of the states and then after Hyderabad, we had a vision and my father’s dream to be in the capital of India and finally since the last three we have been looking for a place,” Anirudh stated.

The company is also said to be very particular about Vastu. Anirudh said, “For us to find a place in south ex which is almost a 50-year old market, it was very difficult. Finally, we have been able to find a place and our landlord has been very supportive to us and we finally opened in New Delhi.”

Indian Retailer  (The news article has not been edited by DFU Publications staff)

Dear Reader, we at DFU Publications are committed to providing the latest news updates on trade development and insights, to keep our readers informed. Stay tuned. Subscribe to our newsletter.

TOP 5:

1. Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce company, collaborates with PUMA on the ‘1DER' line, which features batsman KL Rahul

2. Consumers will determine growth of sustainable fashion e-comm in India

3. Myntra to offer 1 mn styles from about 7,000 brands at the 'Big Fashion Festival'

4. Maharashtra government honors VIP as 'Best Innerwear Brand' for 2021-22

5. Nike strengthens retail presences with new store at DLF Mall of India,Noida

Return to homepage

28 December 2021, Mumbai:

Business-to-customer shopping fair ‘Global Fashion Wedding and Lifestyle Exhibition’ will return to Chandigarh for a winter edition from February 12 to 14, at the city’s Himachal Bhawan. 

Featured product categories at the fair will include women’s ready-to-wear, traditional wear, accessories, jewellery, home décor, and gift items among others.

The majority if brands will be in the bridge-to-luxury segment of the market and health and safety measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 will be enforced as per local regulations. 
 
The shopping fair aims to bring together Chandigarh’s shoppers to introduce them to new brands and give them a wide range of winter and spring fashions and festive looks to choose from. Visitors will be able to discover new brands not usually available offline in the city and brands will be able to widen their reach and connect with new customers in person.

The shopping event is organised by Planning Gurus Riwaaz which holds numerous business-to-customer fairs around Chandigarh. Its most recent fashion event ‘The Closet Saga’ ran from December 11 to 12 at the city’s Hyatt Regency and featured a wide array of womenswear brands in the bridge-to-luxury segment of the market with a focus on bridal and occasion wear for the winter festive season.  

FASHION NETWORK (The news article has not been edited by DFU Publications staff)

Dear Reader, we at DFU Publications are committed to providing the latest news updates on trade development and insights, to keep our readers informed. Stay tuned. Subscribe to our newsletter.

Pitti Bimbo will be held in Italy, January 11 to 13, 2022.

This is a children’swear event. Pitti Bimbo will offer an extensive panorama of this highly diverse industry, with about 170 leading brands exhibiting, of which 81 will be coming from outside Italy. Among them, will be established and niche brands alike, providing a comprehensive international overview of children’s products, from essentials to sportswear, from directional fashion to everyday wear, from footwear to accessories. In parallel, several adult fashion labels will be presenting their children’swear lines in their own stands at PittiUomo, which is being held simultaneously.

Pitti Bimbo’s exhibition area has been extended to include multiple pavilions, and the layout is different from the June session. The 100 per cent Bambino section will showcase leading and long-established children’s labels, offering a wide range of wardrobe choices for all ages, from babies to teenagers: luxury and tailored items, sportswear and urban wear. The Pitti Bimbo section is dedicated to avant-garde children’swear and children’s lifestyle products, showcasing young, pioneering brands distinctive for their constant search for innovation, their materials and style. Both visitor and exhibitor numbers will be up, compared to the last edition, thanks to targeted promotional initiatives to attract major international retailers as well as new, emerging e-tailers.

22 December 2021, Mumbai:

SoftBank-backed e-commerce company Snap deal has filed preliminary documents with markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) to raise funds through an initial public offering (IPO).

The Gurugram-headquartered company is looking to raise Rs 1,250 crore through the sale of new shares while existing investors including SoftBank plan to sell over 3 crore secondary shares, according to Snapdeal's draft red herring prospectus (DRHP).

In the IPO, Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal will not dilute their stake in the company, which was once a frontrunner for the crown along with Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart FOUNDERS WON'T DILUTE STAKE in India's booming but cutthroat e-commerce market. Bahl and Bansal hold around 20% in Snapdeal, while Soft Bank is the largest shareholder with around 35% stake.

Snapdeal's filing comes against the backdrop of a host of internet-led companies such as Zomato, Paytm, Pollcybazaar, and Nykaa opting for a public listing to raise funds.

SOURCE: TOI Dt 22-12-2021  

(The news article has not been edited by DFU Publications staff)

Dear Reader, we at DFU Publications are committed to providing the latest news updates on trade development and insights, to keep our readers informed. Stay tuned. Subscribe to our newsletter.

DAILY NEWS:

• Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce company, collaborates with PUMA on the ‘1DER' line, which features batsman KL Rahul

• Consumers will determine growth of sustainable fashion e-comm in India

• Myntra to offer 1 mn styles from about 7,000 brands at the 'Big Fashion Festival'

• Maharashtra government honors VIP as 'Best Innerwear Brand' for 2021-22

• Nike strengthens retail presences with new store at DLF Mall of India,Noida

Return to homepage

16 November 2021, Mumbai: 

*Stylumia, part of the Nasscom DeepTech Club, was founded by former Myntra COD Canesh Subramanian in 2015 with the idea of predicting future trends and demand for fashion products Fashion specialist Hemamalin Padmanabhan and Al specialist Sharath Puranik joined the team later.

*Subramanian said they saw fashion forecasting and demand planning were done subjectively, or were based on traditional consumer research, or on data platforms that throw supply-driven signals "We realised these methods do not solve the fundamental challenge in fashion of trend spotting and prediction. The full prices through continues to remain around SC The biggest wastage in the fashion industry is the one caused by ill-informed decision-makin," he said.

Styluria uses computer vision and a proprietary Al-powered demand sensing algorithm to analyse consumer demand data. It analyses millions of consumers' voices to define consumer likes and dislikes for the present and the future. It analyses what's available for consumers, it looks at fast-moving products, and, more importantly, what is not selling at colour size level for assortment planning.

It also processes and analyses millions of images and textual attributes of fashion styles across runways fashion websites, and e-commerce to generate winning design ideas for designers and brands.

*Stylumia, which has 30 employees, works with brands and retailers across 22 countries Customers include Vira Moda, Fossil, Ray-Ban, Amazon, AJIO, Myntra, Flipkart Aditya Birla. Group Arvind, LVMH, and Jack & Jones. TOI

(The news article has not been edited by DFU Publications staff)

TOP 5:

1. Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce company, collaborates with PUMA on the ‘1DER' line, which features batsman KL Rahul

2. Consumers will determine growth of sustainable fashion e-comm in India

3. Myntra to offer 1 mn styles from about 7,000 brands at the 'Big Fashion Festival'

4. Maharashtra government honors VIP as 'Best Innerwear Brand' for 2021-22

5. Nike strengthens retail presences with new store at DLF Mall of India,Noida

Return to homepage

17 December 2021, Mumbai:

In the 2021-22 season, the price of cotton in the international market touched a decade high. And worryingly it continues its growth.

According to the latest update by the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), the coming crop season looks like a hopeful one for the farmers, with high cotton prices likely to last through the 2021/22 season.

Which is supposed to be a good sign for cotton growers, but according to cotton experts, this has an ultimately negative impact. This will drive cotton-made garments costs, which makes cotton less competitive against other fibers.

It also said cotton prices are likely to be unstable through the rest of the 2021/22 season but it is also improbable that the price will hike much higher than the present point.

The ICAC Secretariat does not think prices or instability to reach those of the notorious 2010/11 season when prices rose all the way to 243.65 cents per pound.

While mill use is likely to remain strong in 2021/22, worldwide stocks are supposed to be adequate to meet the demand. At the end of the 2020/21 season, global stocks are projected at 20.35m tons.

The secretariat’s present price forecast of the season-average A index for 2021/22 ranges from 91 cents to 119 cents, with an average of 103.29 cents per pound.

In November, the ICAC said international cotton production is to show a 6% year-over-year increase versus 2020/21, with the rush led by three of the world’s top five producers — US, Brazil, and Pakistan.

TEXTILE TODAY (The news article has not been edited by DFU Publications staff)

Dear Reader, we at DFU Publications are committed to providing the latest news updates on trade development and insights, to keep our readers informed. Stay tuned. Subscribe to our newsletter.

DAILY NEWS:

• Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce company, collaborates with PUMA on the ‘1DER' line, which features batsman KL Rahul

• Consumers will determine growth of sustainable fashion e-comm in India

• Myntra to offer 1 mn styles from about 7,000 brands at the 'Big Fashion Festival'

• Maharashtra government honors VIP as 'Best Innerwear Brand' for 2021-22

• Nike strengthens retail presences with new store at DLF Mall of India,Noida

Return to homepage