As I stood outside the Grand Hyatt in Bombay after the Images Retail Awards, waiting for my car – I spotted Jesse Randhava in front of me. There were a few painted others who were younger and maybe from the time that I stopped following page 3 news. The inaugural HDIL India Couture Week was happening at the same venue and I couldn’t help but think that no matter what, recession never hits the Indian fashion industry. Or the real Estate Industry for that matter. Or if it hits them, it takes a long time for the message to sink in ! And in keeping with that spirit you have a real estate company called Housing Development & Infrastructure Limited ( HDIL) sponsoring the Couture Week ! He He ! Funny.
The organisers, FDCI had discreetly said earlier that said that the Couture Week was timed to appeal to India’s wealthy elite and expatriate Indians ahead of the autumn wedding season. And to catch the Big Fat Indian Wedding season, the Delhi Fashion Week begins on October 14, Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week starts in Delhi the next day, and Lakme Fashion Week begins on October 20 in Bombay. Hallelujah !
The great indian wedding show, truly, deeply and always goes on.
I love the nimbu-mirchi – the most important ( and creative) element of Visual Merchandising in traditional Indian retail to ward off the evil eye ! Though of course you’ll also see it outside the poshest stores selling ‘firang’ labels.
If you’ve got a franchisee with a fertile Indian mind, you’d better develop the zen for green chillies and the lemon!
I love Barney’s Communication! Not Barney, the purple dinosaur but Barneys New York, the luxe retail brand. I love the Barney’s website, the mailers, the catalogue and those clothes. It’s a pity I don’t have the rich-punjabi-husband!
I was reminded of Barneys while reading in the ET the other day about Aditya Birla Nuvo’s plans to launch a chain of lux stores in India, inspired by Harvey ‘Nicks’ and the Barneys concepts! The stores will be called ‘Collective’.
I remember, on my first geeky trip to London, I carried a list of all the ‘must -visit and be photographed at’ places! There was Harrods topping that list and I hadn’t heard of Harvey Nicks! But my up market friends in London told me that Harrods was where the oldies go and so I landed at the imposing corner building a few streets away from Harrods.
It’s been 10 years that Aditya Birla went shopping for the Madura Brands and things have been rather quite since then. With ‘Collective’, the company will take a very big fashionable leap – targeted at the metrosexual man, the chain will have 12 stores to begin with in Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi. To support the backend, AFL Logistics has already set up the first-of-its-kind 12000 sq ft fashion and luxury retail distribution centre in Bhiwandi specially for the Madura Garments Lifestyle Retail Company. The second such Luxury distribution center will shortly be announced in Bangalore.
What’s special about a Luxury goods warehouse? Well, pleased to be educating you – it has automated biometric access, infrared security and surveillance with high-end cameras which are capable of motion based capture, customised racking and a fully mapped warehouse management system. Binning and picking guided by a fisrt of its kind in India wireless radio frequency gun (RF gun) and more ! Phew, are we impressed !
Aditya Birla have lined an impressive array of the brands to be showcased at the ‘Collective’ – VF’s 7 Jeans, True Religion, Keneth Cole, Ted Baker & Valentino. This should make ‘Collective’ the hottest fashion spot for the ‘with-it’ Indian male!
Though, on another note can you imagine the possible remote consequences of pictures of Buddha playing the guitar? That’s ‘True Religion’ jeans for you. The Keneth Cole homepage celebrates ‘gender identity’ by showing a transgender woman kissing her boyfriend. All that with the likes of Ted Baker & Valentino makes it a rather eclectic mix. In a country looking for excuses to make politics, everything has potential! And thank God politicians don’t read (blogs).
Was there life before the gas lighters ? It took me about 60 seconds to clear the fog over the last few decades of my life, even though I think I am still of relevant age ! The neighbourhood ‘Kiranedar’ would deliver the monthly ration in a neatly packed cardboard carton, brought up to our first storey flat by a random kid who would always look emaciated just like I did. Child labour was not a fashionable topic those days.
I read this morning that 94 Thomas Bata, died in Toronto on Monday evening. For many years of my life I believed Bata was an Indian company. Something to do with the fact that Bata rhymed with Tata but more than that since Bata has been my generation’s childhood companion. I grew up with the Bata School shoes with a rather special relationship with my white PT shoes which I used to religiously wash in detergent every Sunday and then carefully beautify with a white shoe paint. My rather long big toe would sometimes win a battle with the shoe to dig a small hole ahead. And it used to be time for the next visit to the Bata shop in Alambagh.
Thomas Bata was called Tom by his friends and he had tremendous love for India and its people. His contribution to our country can never be forgotten and India accounted for the maximum Bata sales. Bata gave us our first shoes. In the 75 years Bata has a 35 % market share in the organized footwear sector and 8.5 % of India’s total footwear market. Bata retails from 1,250 stores across the country. It sells over 45 million pairs of shoes every year with an annual sales turnover of more than 178 million USD ( Rs 8 billion).
The company’s brands include Hush Puppies, Dr. Scholls, North Star, Power, Marie Claire and Bubbleguymmers. The company’s latest is a joint venture real estate project with the Calcutta Metropolitan Group to develop 262 acres land in Batanagar into a world-class integrated township called Calcutta Riverside.
Tata Chemicals in fact already has a network of 613 Tata Kisan Sansar Kendras to sell agricultural inputs & advice farmers on crops to grow and farming practices to adopt. Therefore the natural progression for some of these stores would be to become fruits and vegetable wholesale stores.
Mukesh Ambani may just have put his foot in his mouth by his open support to Project Nano !
Madam Banerjee has announced that she now wants to take on some more ! The last I read, she has organised a ‘dukandar’ rally of small shopkeepers in Singur to oppose (sic) the entry of corporates into retail since she fears it would lead to disaster !
It may be noted that after being ousted from Kolkatta last year, Reliance Fresh has just about opened 3 stores in Kolkatta once again. The paint may perhaps still be wet at the stores but it sure does smell trouble for them once more.
All this, while she has slammed the breaks on Ratan Tata’s small car along with thousands of large trucks and other vehicles on the Durgapur expressway.
Though she seems to have broadened her ban to include all of the big boys like Kishore Biyani’s Pantaloon Retail, RPG’s Spencers, and Tata’s Westside. It doesn’t help that Kishore Biyani took his first step into organised retail in Kolkata and RPG’s Spencer’s is based out of Kolkata. Spencer’s in fact was forced to buy peace with street hawkers around its new hypermarket by agreeing to certain restrictions on trade placed by Gariahat Hawkers’ Sangram Samiti and National Hawkers’ Federation.
Madam Banerji thinks organised retail is a national “diasaster”.
God save the nation !
This is an unofficial blog about my ringside view of the Indian Retail Industry. The idea to write this blog came about quite by default while working upon the retailipedia.com concept. I wanted to create a space where I could write about the Retail I am passionate about, the news that stirs me, the happenings, behind the scenes of how a retail concept is created and live my thoughts on Retail on the pages of this blog.
Since Retail is the only job I think I know.
