admin
June 13, 2025
Hiral Goyal, The Morning Context
13 June 2025
Several smart, well-to-do Indians believe they have an opportunity to build a successful business by selling apparel to affluent people. Armed with this hypothesis and with venture capital in tow, these entrepreneurs are having a go at the market.
Some are building a business just around undergarments, for instance. Others are focusing on premium T-shirts. Or denim wear. There’s also ethnic wear. And work clothes. Even workout clothes. It would appear that every niche in the apparel market is being exploited by someone who believes they have a product that can disrupt the category and create a large, sustainable business.
Amid this sea of ventures, BlissClub stands out.
In only five years of operations, the Bengaluru-based startup has made a name for itself. By simply focusing on premium activewear for women. Now that’s a niche within a niche.
Founded by Minu Margeret in 2020, BlissClub’s story goes something like this. Drawing on her personal experience as a frisbee player, Margeret started BlissClub to address the needs of Indian women who struggled to find comfortable and functional activewear. With inclusive sizing and tiny details such as pockets and wide waistbands in leggings, the startup catered to Indian women with products that were specifically designed for them and their body types.
The idea clicked. Women were willing to experiment with BlissClub’s clothing and, on the back of its early success, the company has grown from zero to revenue of over Rs 85 crore as of 31 March 2024. The startup has also been able to raise capital from VC investors like Elevation Capital, Eight Roads Ventures and Alteria Capital, who’ve come on board hoping that Margeret is onto something. Just last month, the company raised Rs 45 crore (around $5.3 million) in a Series B funding round, a mix of debt and equity. This took its total fundraise to nearly $26 million (Rs 222 crore), according to Entrackr.
Except that’s all the good news there is. Five years in, it looks like BlissClub is at a crossroads. Its revenue growth has slowed-from 360% year-on-year in 2022-23 to just 27% in 2023-24-and its valuation remains flat at $67 million.
Already, women’s activewear as a category is far too niche. It doesn’t help that BlissClub now faces intense competition from legacy players like Page Industries (Jockey’s India licensee), Aditya Birla Group and French sporting goods retailer Decathlon as well as startups like HRX and Clovia. All of them are trying to grow their sales to keep up with the rapidly growing trend of casual attire, where product differentiation is now largely down to marketing. It is another matter altogether that these customers are price-conscious, and disposable income to spend on premium clothing is limited to a few million people in India.
That’s the reality of the market where BlissClub operates. “The greatest challenge for the new athleisure brands, apart from capital and internal execution discipline, is to maintain brand integrity rather than get sucked into price battles and discounting, which is a race to the bottom that only the businesses with large balance sheets can win,” says Devangshu Dutta, founder and chief executive of Third Eyesight, a management consulting firm focused on the retail and consumer goods industry.
Questions sent to Margeret did not elicit a response. But it’s important to ask, what should BlissClub do? It may have had a great start, but is that enough to scale? This is what we’ve set out to explore in this story.
Fighting the big guns
Almost every customer in India who’s out to buy activewear or athleisure-has enough well-known brands to choose from. There’s Jockey, Decathlon, Nike, Puma, Adidas, Asics and Skechers, to name a few. And there’s something for everyone at every possible price point.
So, what particular need is BlissClub trying to fulfill?
Margeret says she started the company because she could never find appropriate activewear in the Indian market. From BlissClub’s website about its origin story: “While some clothes were comfortable, they simply did not stretch enough. Those that did stretch, were too compressive.” With BlissClub, Margeret focused on inclusive sizes and comfortable fabric that was ideally suited to India’s hot climate.
But are inclusivity and quality enough when it comes to having a differentiating factor? Not really.
Nothing, for instance, would stop other brands from copying BlissClub’s designs or offering comparable quality to gain customers. Additionally, BlissClub risks losing customers to other brands if it fails to keep up with its promise of top-most quality products. Some customers have already taken to social media recently to share their grievances (here, here, here and here). Their most common complaint? The quality of BlissClub’s fabric has gone down and there’s a lot of pilling.
On top of this, there is unrelenting competition from legacy players, most of whom have been building their athleisure portfolio for sometime now. Take Page Industries, for example. The company launched its athleisure portfolio in 1995, but it only doubled down on making it a key growth pillar in 2014-15. Just a couple of years later, Aditya Birla Group entered the men’s athleisure business with Van Heusen in 2016 and later expanded into women’s wear as well. Both these brands were quick to identify the shifting fashion trend to casual wear and benefited handsomely when the category finally exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic-as people started working from home and focusing on their physical health. Here’s what Page Industries’ CEO Karthik Yathindra told Mint in 2022 about the company’s decision to focus on athleisure: “So, the timing worked out for us very well. Demand has also been healthy across innerwear for men and women, but athleisure really surged a lot more than what we had anticipated or planned for. I would say, we jumped a year or two in terms of demand with athleisure compared to pre-pandemic days. We literally doubled our business. Whereas, overall, as an organization, we clocked 37-38% jump in revenue in the last financial year.”
It is no surprise then that these companies are well positioned in terms of the distribution network and the range of choices they offer to take on the Indian athleisure market as compared to BlissClub and other small players. Page Industries, for example, has more than 111,000 multi-brand stores and 1,453 exclusive brand stores, besides its digital presence through its own website and third-party marketplaces. BlissClub, on the other hand, has largely been an online player, selling products through its own website or through marketplaces like Myntra and Amazon. At present, it runs 14 retail stores across nine cities.
That’s no small gap, and competition is only going to heat up. So, what options does BlissClub have?
Stretched thin
From where BlissClub stands today, there are only a few ways it can grow its top line. Mostly because the size of India’s athleisure market remains small; it’s even smaller for women. “Athleisure is a $15 billion market with a CAGR of 20%. Of this, women are -30-40%,” says Gaurav Verma, co-founder and head of consumer investments at venture capital fund Ortella Global Capital. This $5-billion market for women’s activewear becomes smaller if we take into account only the premium space. (We couldn’t independently verify this estimate as there are no reliable reports available.)
In a niche market like this, there’s limited room to scale. Unless you cut down prices, introduce more categories, start catering to all genders or open retail stores. Let’s look at each of these options.
First up, the prices. Any premium brand that cuts prices risks diluting itself. Now, BlissClub has been handing out discounts and buy-one-get-one offers more liberally than ever before. For example, its Ultimate Leggings the company’s bestselling product -is priced at Rs 2,299 and sold at Rs 1,399 after discount. But when you compare it with Decathlon or homegrown brands like Hrithik Roshan-backed HRX or Clovia, you’d find that BlissClub remains in the premium segment even after discounts. And while lowering prices further might help BlissClub gain more customers, its margins-already EBITDA-negative-will most likely suffer.
The second strategy is introducing more categories. This is something BlissClub seems to be interested in. The startup entered the innerwear category with sports bras. The latest additions have been swimwear and travel wear. But in these segments, BlissClub is yet to replicate the kind of success it saw with its flagship products-Ultimate Leggings and Ultimate Flare Pants.
There is a bigger problem here. When it comes to athleisure startups, says Verma, “there are growth concerns beyond the top 3-5 SKUs [stock keeping units) like leggings, tops.” He goes on to say, “Unless we see growth in [direct-to-consumer) on higher-priced SKUs like jackets, shoes and accessories, we will continue to see pressure on both top line and bottom line growth.”
To make matters worse for BlissClub, the new categories the company is venturing into are witnessing increased competition. Take innerwear, for example. Influencer Kusha Kapila recently announced her shapewear brand Underneat, backed by Fireside Ventures and Mamaearth co-founder Ghazal Alagh. Besides this, players like Jockey, Clovia and Van Heusen have also been fighting for market share.
The third option, then, is to enter the menswear category. Though a natural extension for any athleisure brand, it does not promise scale. Let’s look at Technosport for some perspective. The A91 Partners-backed company, which sells affordable activewear for men and women across categories, reported a revenue of Rs 382 crore (around $44.5 million) in 2023-24. But that is after 18 years of operations and catering to the mass market with a fairly well-established distribution in the offline channel.
An even bigger challenge for BlissClub here would be to shake off its identity as a brand for women. Take the case of Lululemon. When the Canadian activewear company entered the men’s business in 2014, the biggest concern was that the brand was popularized by women and it would be tough to convince male customers to buy its products. The breakthrough here was the company’s ABC pants-short for anti-ball crushing pants-which helped Lululemon acquire male customers. Still, Lululemon continues to struggle with its identity as a women’s brand. Its latest effort to fight this was by making seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton its brand ambassador.
Finally, there’s the option of opening physical stores to acquire more customers. A digital-first strategy, says Dutta, allows the newer niche brands to directly connect with their target customers and achieve a critical mass. However, to get greater scale, “they need to add offline presence as well,” he notes. “Offline stores are not just a mainstreaming opportunity but also a way to create a brand immersion experience for the consumers, which can strengthen the connect with their core consumer segment.”
However, considering that BlissClub is a premium brand, it only makes sense for the brand to open outlets in high-street markets. But this would entail some serious expenditure. After all, opening retail stores requires capital.
Raising capital, though, does not look like a tall order for BlissClub. Its most recent fundraise, which will be used towards growth and expansion, is a testament to that. Before that, the company had raised $15 million in its Series A round. The credit for this partly goes to Margeret and Vidit Aatrey’s connections in the VC ecosystem. Aatrey, Margeret’s husband, is Meesho’s co-founder and CEO (the e-commerce company itself has raised $1.61 billion in total funding.)
Thanks to the funds it has been able to raise, BlissClub has had a good run so far.
However, with competition brewing in this space, the company risks losing its edge and becoming one of many. To give credit where it’s due, BlissClub has done a great job at building brand equity in the Indian activewear market. To grow beyond where it is today, though, it will need to rethink its strategy.
Perhaps it already is. In the last year, BlissClub has entered into categories beyond activewear; this includes innerwear, swimwear and most recently, travel wear. At the same time, it is also opening retail stores across the country.
How BlissClub scales will leave cues not just for Margeret but everyone else who believes they can build a niche apparel company in India successfully.
(Published in The Morning Context)
admin
May 23, 2025
By Kunal Purohit and Ananya Bhattacharya, Rest of World
Mumbai, India, 23 May 2025
Online retail continues to elude India’s richest man.
The Shein India app, launched by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail in partnership with the Chinese fast-fashion giant, has struggled to gain traction in a market where Amazon and Walmart have been fighting neck-to-neck for nearly a decade. Downloads for Shein India nosedived from 50,000 a day shortly after its launch in early February to 3,311 in early April, according to AppMagic, a U.S.-based app performance tracker.
In April, when U.S. tariffs hit China, the app saw renewed interest as it was in the news, but experts are unclear on whether this growth is sustainable.
“Unlike earlier times, now … [the] market is saturated with multiple options and offers, and user interest can quickly dwindle,” Yugal Joshi, partner at global research firm Everest Group, told Rest of World.
Kushal Bhatnagar of Indian consulting firm Redseer, however, sees the late-April spike as a healthy sign, given that Reliance has yet to run paid marketing campaigns for Shein.
Reliance Retail declined to respond to Rest of World’s queries about its partnership with Shein.
Reliance launched Shein for India five years after the original Shein app was banned in the country over border tensions with China. But the Shein that has returned is entirely separate from Shein’s global platform: Rather than selling made-in-China clothes and accessories directly to consumers, Shein now operates as a technology partner, while Reliance Retail handles the heavy lifting — from sourcing and manufacturing to distribution. All consumer data is managed by the Indian company.
The partnership is part of Ambani’s broader effort to overhaul his retail business, whose valuation fell to $50 billion in 2025 from $125 billion in 2022. Although the company has made a push into digital platforms like JioMart, Ajio, and most recently Shein India, the bulk of its retail revenue still comes from its 18,000 physical stores.
Lagging behind Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart, which together control nearly 60% of India’s e-commerce market, Reliance has spent years trying to break into the sector. Between 2020 and 2025, Ambani’s group acquired majority stakes in companies spanning digital services, online pharmaceuticals, and quick commerce. But the investments have yet to position Reliance as a serious challenger to Amazon and Flipkart.
Analysts say the Indian behemoth hopes to leverage Shein’s artificial intelligence-powered trendspotting and automated inventory systems to pursue an ambitious goal: capturing a major share of India’s e-commerce market, projected to hit $345 billion by 2030.
According to Kaustav Sengupta, director of insights at VisionNxt, an Indian government-funded initiative that uses AI to forecast fashion trends, such a model is likely to make good use of Reliance’s humongous customer data sets: more than 476 million subscribers for its Jio telecom brand, 300 million users for e-commerce platform JioMart, and 452 million subscribers for its news and entertainment portfolio, consisting of 63 channels, a streaming service, and digital news outlets.
“With these data points, Reliance wants to now sell fashion products, so all it needs is a system where it can feed all these data points,” Sengupta told Rest of World. He said the model would be able to predict best-selling products and suggest the right prices for them.
The original Shein app uses AI-driven models for intelligent warehousing and to spot customer trends before manufacturing a new product. It scales the manufacturing up or tweaks the designs based on the feedback. At any given time, the Shein website has a catalogue of more than 600,000 items. Its Indian iteration does not match up, according to reviews on the Google Play store. Several customer reviews for Reliance’s Shein app are critical of higher prices and reduced options. The app’s rating hovered at 2 out of 5 until February; in May, it climbed to 4.4, but reviews were still a mixed bag.
Reviews of the Indian app highlight the disparity with Shein’s global version, criticizing higher prices and a reduced selection of categories and styles.
As of April 25, Reliance Retail said only 12,000 products were live on Shein India, a stark contrast to the 600,000 items available on Shein’s global platforms. While Shein is reportedly set to debut on the London Stock Exchange this year, Ambani’s years-old promise to take Reliance Retail public remains unfulfilled.
Reliance Retail, which accounts for around 30% of the conglomerate’s overall business, is facing a slowdown in annual growth. Its sales rose just 7.9% in the fiscal year ending March 2025, down from 17.8% the previous year. Meanwhile, shares of rival Tata Group’s retail and fashion arm, Trent, have soared by 133%.
“Reliance would have looked at reviving that momentum and riding on it, while for Shein, adding India back on its portfolio of markets could be a plus point before its proposed public listing,” Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, a brand management consultancy that has worked with various global e-commerce brands including Ikea, told Rest of World.
A Reliance Retail official privy to information about its fast fashion expansion plans told Rest of World the partnership with Shein also hinges on global manufacturing ambitions as the Chinese company is trying to “source its products from other countries like India” to meet the “additional demand that is coming from newer markets.” Reliance Retail has tapped a network of small and midsize Indian manufacturers to locally source products, and its subsidiary Nextgen Fast Fashion Limited is leading the charge. “We need to first scale up our domestic manufacturing, before our partnership starts manufacturing for global markets. Let us see how that goes, first,” the official said, requesting anonymity as he is not authorized to share this information publicly.
India’s Gen Z population is at 377 million and counting, and their spending power is set to surpass $2 trillion by 2035, according to a 2024 report by Boston Consulting Group. Every fast-fashion retailer wants to capture this market, but it “is very new even for Reliance,” Rimjim Deka, founder of Indian fast-fashion platform Littlebox, told Rest of World.
Deka said smaller brands like hers “just see [a trend] and implement it,” which could take a large conglomerate months to do, by which time the trend may have lost relevance.
Reliance’s previous attempts to attract young shoppers with clothing brands like Foundry and Yousta failed to find much success. Anandita Bhuyan, who works in trend forecasting and product creation for fast-fashion clients like H&M and Myntra, told Rest of World the company has struggled to effectively leverage consumer data and target India’s youth.
According to the Reliance Retail official, the company is confident that if “there are 10 existing brands, the 11th brand will also get picked up as long as there is value and there is fashion.”
“Shein already has a recall among the youth. It gives us yet another brand in our portfolio through which we can cater to the youth,” the official said.
Shein was built in China on the back of more than 5,400 micro manufacturers — a scattered and loosely organized network of small and midsize factories.
In January this year, on a visit to China, Deka met with manufacturers working for Shein and Temu. On the outskirts of Guangzhou, Deka saw factories set up in areas that appeared residential, with “women sitting inside houses” making clothes.
“The tech is built in a way that somebody sitting there is able to see that, okay, next 15 days or next one month, how much I should be making … that is the kind of integration they have done,” Deka said.
Deka told Rest of World this model is easier to replicate at a smaller scale. “Me, coming from [the] supply chain industry, I understand that it is much easier for a brand like us because we are at a very smaller scale. We can still go to those people, we can still build it in a very unorganized way and then pull it off,” she said. Her company’s annual net revenue is 750 million Indian rupees ($8.6 million).
“[But] somebody like Reliance, they just cannot go haphazard here. … It has to be always organized,” Deka said.
Shein moved its headquarters to Singapore sometime between late 2021 and early 2022, a strategic departure to distance itself from its Chinese origins and facilitate hassle-free international expansion amid the U.S.-China trade war.
India is part of Shein’s wider strategy to diversify its supply chain — one that also includes a newly leased warehouse near Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, and efforts to establish alternative manufacturing hubs in Brazil and Turkey.
But in India, Reliance needs Shein as much as Shein needs Reliance for its global pivot. According to Bloomberg, Reliance Retail is focusing on creating leaner operations to weather a wider consumption slump in the Indian economy.
“It remains to be seen whether the Reliance-Shein combine can deliver on the brand’s promise with a wide range of products, fast and on-trend,” Dutta said. “In the years that Shein has been absent, the Indian market has evolved further, competition has intensified, and past goodwill is not enough to provide sales momentum.”
Kunal Purohit is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai, India.
Ananya Bhattacharya is a reporter for Rest of World covering South Asia’s tech scene. She is based in Mumbai, India.
(Published in Rest of World)
admin
May 5, 2025
Mint, 5 May 2026
Priyamvada C., Sneha Shah
Urban India’s pet parents are driving a wave of investor interest in the pet care space. A clutch of startups such as Heads Up For Tails, Supertails, and Vetic are now in fundraising talks amid rising demand for premium products and services
While Supertails looks to raise about ₹200 crore by the end of this year, Heads Up For Tails is eyeing an investment from domestic investment firm 360 One Asset over the next few months, according to mul tiple people familiar with the matter.
Vetic, a tech-enabled chain of pet clinics, is looking to raise a sizeable round and has begun discussions with investors, they said, adding that some of these transactions may see existing investors part exit their stake.
Supertails and Vetic did not immediately respond to Mint’s requests for a comment. While 360 One declined to comment, Heads Up For Tails’ founder Rashi Narang denied the development.
Investor interest in pet care surged in the years following the pandemic, driven by a wave of new pet adoptions and rising disposable incomes. In 2023, pet care startups raised a record $66.3 million across 16 rounds, led by one major transaction ― Drool’s $60 million fundraise.
While 2023 saw a funding spike driven by Drool’s large deal, overall funding activity in 2024 was more broad-based, with fundraising at $17.9 million spanning 13 rounds, as per Tracxn.
“Pet ownership in India is estimated to be less than 10% of overall households, but growing at a rapid pace with rising incomes, especially among urban consumers. In developed economies, pet ownership can exceed three in four households, and that headroom for growth is reflected among the upper income segments in India,” said Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a management consulting firm.
He added that urban couples and singles in many cases are even opting to become “pet parents” instead of having children.
Platforms such as Supertails, Drools and Heads Up For Tails have been the big beneficiaries of this shift. Drools raised $60 million from LVMH-backed private equity firm L Catterton in 2023, while Supertails raised $15 million led by RPSG Capital Ventures in February last year.
Similarly, Supertails, which is in talks to acquire Blue 7 Vets, a multi speciality veterinary clinic, as part of its strategy to expand offline, will also raise capital to fund the acquisition of new customers, investments in technology, and the expansion of healthcare services, including Super-tails Pharmacy and build an omni-channel experience for consumers.
The company raised about $15 million in its series B funding round last year led by RPSG Capital Ventures and existing investors Fireside Ventures, Saama Capital, DSG Consumer Partners and Sauce VC.
(Published in Mint)
admin
March 7, 2025
Shailja Tiwari, Financial Express
March 7, 2025
This is what happens when you hit the gym after a long pause. On your first rebound day, the same weights seem heavier, the same set of squats tires you quicker. You might feel frustrated – nothing seems the way you left it.
The same scenario faces brands looking to make a comeback. Those “muscles” – read brand loyalty -have lost strength due to long absence. The brand’s “stamina”- customer loyalty – have declined with neglect. All of which essentially means you need a relook at the entire “regimen” – the product, price, place and promotion – that seemed to work the last time around.
Men’s fashion brand Reid & Taylor is facing the same dilemma.
Launched in India in 1998, the brand vanished from the market in 2018 after S Kumars – which held the rights to manufacture and market the Scottish brand in India went bankrupt. Reid & Taylor is making a gradual comeback now, under the aegis of its new owner Finquest Group, complete with a campaign featuring new brand ambassador Vicky Kaushal and tagline, “Man on a Mission”.
Finquest Group has invested over ₹750 crore in revitalising the brand. Reid & Taylor is available in more than 1,200 multi-brand and exclusive brand outlets across the country, as per a company announcement.
In January, Reid & Taylor also announced its partnership with the Unicommerce to knit together the brand’s website, warehouses, physical stores, and other online platforms in one integrated network. The tech integration followed the launch of Reid & Taylor’s brand website and its growing presence across various online marketplaces, a clear signal the company is gearing up to address the needs of today’s customer and give its competitors a run for their money.
Kapil Makhija, CEO and MD, Unicommerce, explains how this will enable Reid & Taylor to modernise its operations: “In addition to a consistent customer experience, this integration enables efficient inventory management through a centralised platform that allows ship-from-store service, where the brand can switch orders between warehouses and stores, offering a broader assortment for sale and faster order fulfilment. It also helps Reid and Taylor connect with the more online savvy audience.”
The Indian menswear market, encompassing formal, casual and traditional apparel, had crossed ₹2 trillion in 2023 and is expected to reach ₹4.3 trillion by 2027, as per a Statista report. Experts say that the menswear category has grown exponentially since Reid & Taylor’s first outing. It has a host of local and international brands such as Raymond, Mufti, Allen Solly, Louis Phillipe and Manyavar offering stiff competition.
In other words, Reid & Taylor has its task cut out.
Makeover strategy
The greatest challenge for the relaunched brand is to establish relevance and share-of-mind with a new set of consumers, observes Devangshu Dutta, CEO of Third Eyesight. “In its initial avatar in India, it rode on the brand’s past goodwill, but since its fall a few years ago, the market has changed significantly. Ready-to-wear apparel, growth of modern retail, online commerce and a set of consumers who have no past history or association with the brand are all significant factors at play, remarks Dutta.
At its best in the early-2000s, the brand was positioned mostly within the wedding segment, a category that is also rapidly changing. The styles that dominate wedding apparel are changing among younger cohorts, points out Ajimon Francis, MD India for Brand Finance. Formal three-piece suits and safari suits are no longer style statements.
Consumers are opting either for designer wear like a Tarun Tahiliani or for mid-segment offerings where brands like Raymond operate. “Formal suits are becoming an ‘uncle’ or ‘dadaji’ segment, and the wedding lines showcased by most brands are geared towards traditional wear. Formalwear for weddings now includes sherwanis and kurtas, where brands like Manyavar and FabIndia rule,” he points out.
Reflecting on the brand’s exit earlier from the Indian market, Francis says that its owners’ (S Kumars) inability to adapt the brand to changing consumer behaviour led to its downfall. The Finquest Group will need to clearly redefine its new positioning since Reid & Taylor now offers a mix of styles across casual and formal menswear.
Legacy brings credibility but it can also be baggage, remarks Rutu Mody Kamdar, founder of Jigsaw Brand Consultants. The challenge for Reid & Taylor lies in shaking off the heritage brand’ tag and making itself relevant to younger buyers who value modern style over nostalgia. “It needs to own the ‘quiet luxury’ space, timeless tailoring with a contemporary edge. That includes modern cuts, cultural collaborations, omnichannel presence, and aspirational storytelling,” suggests Kamdar.
E-commerce strategy will be key too. The brand will need to blend strong visuals with smart pricing and seamless strategy. Kamdar adds that Reid & Taylor needs to look at e-commerce as not just a sales channel but also a brand building platform.
(Published in Financial Express – Brandwagon)
admin
February 23, 2025
Chitra Narayanan, BusinessLine
New Delhi, 23 February 2025
India’s formidable array of craft traditions got full play at the just concluded Bharat Tex 2025, the mega textile trade show in New Delhi that showcased the best of Indian weaves to the world. But if there was one theme that dominated this year’s textile extravaganza, aimed at generating more exports, it was the focus on zero-waste fashions and upcycling. Everywhere the eye could see were standees and gigantic posters pushing the message of conscious consumption and sustainability — be it regenerative cotton, innovative models of textile waste collection, or eco-friendly fibres.
Taking centre stage at one of the halls at Bharat Mandapam, the venue, was a section that showcased age-old traditional arts like rafugari (creative darning or artistic mending), patchwork quilts and toys, and chindi durries (the art of weaving rugs and carpets with waste).
Juxtaposed against these ethnic ways of upcycling waste were the modern works of startups that rose to the textile ministry’s grand innovation challenge to work with discarded materials. From microbial dyes that are non-polluting to flowing fashionable lehengas created out of textile waste, the startups showed that a lot can be done in this area. The ministry had challenges in three more segments — jute, silk and wool.
Some takeaways from a walk-through of the textile trade show:
Closing the loop
The fashion and textile industry generates enormous waste. How to cut down on this was a subject of much deliberation and showcases. There were a lot of good ideas on display, showing that a fair amount of work has been done with fibres (bamboo, banana, flax), as well as creativity and ingenuity in weaves and finished garments.
As Devangshu Dutta, Chief Executive of the consultancy Third Eyesight, points out, due credit must be given for the good work going into generating solutions that will reduce waste, be it textiles that are reprocessed and reused as yarn, or refashioned garments or reloved apparel. But, as he adds, on the other hand we have brands that are constantly looking to grow their business and there is a race to the bottom in terms of price. The relaunch of fast fashion retailer Shein in India is sending conflicting signals. “The basic engine is pumping out more and more products, and that has to be tackled,” he says, pointing to the competing forces at work.
The source of hope, he says, is the fact that the young are a bit more conservative about how they consume and what they consume.
Sandip Ghose, CEO of MP Birla Group, which has one of the oldest jute companies in India, was among the visitors at Bharat Tex. “As an industry insider, what I found good at Bharat Tex was that quite a bit of research seems to be on, both for finished fabric and for weaving. There was a lot of work on making jute look aesthetic. There were some vanity projects like tea leaves packed in jute bags. But the challenge is in two areas — commercialisation, and scaling up of these ideas,” he says.
He rues that the jute sector has not taken advantage of the production-linked incentive scheme at a time when the world is looking for eco-friendly and biodegradable textiles. “A tripartite partnership between the Centre (Niti Aayog and textile ministry), State government, and industry would address the issue of industry’s dependence on subsidies, labour issues and exports,” he says, adding that if India is looking at textiles as a major export area, jute is an option that has been missed.
Spinning into luxury
A clear trend evident from a tour of some of the apparel and home textile pavilions is the move towards premiumisation, similar to what is visible in other sectors, noticeably FMCG.
Talking to the manufacturers, especially those focused on the domestic market, the story one heard was that consumption had slowed in the mass segment, but was reassuringly strong in the premium segment.
Several players were also moving into the luxury and uber luxury segments. Both myTrident and Welspun had striking luxury collections.
Another trend visible in the home textiles section was the use of celebrity designers — myTrident’s eye-catching collection by resort-wear designers Shivan-Narresh; and Welspun’s beautiful sets from Kate Shand and Payal Singhal.
“When the economy suffers, it is the poor and middle class who cut down. There is no pressure to reduce consumption at the upper levels, and companies will try to tap into demand that is recession-proof,” says Dutta, explaining the push towards luxury by textile manufacturers.
New trade routes?
Export houses seemed reasonably happy with the buyer interest. Some mentioned that it was interesting to see buyers from Russia at the fair. However, for those supplying to US entities and Western Europe, the buyer interest from Russia may not translate into deals, given the risk of sanctions they could face.
To sum up, it was a fairly good showcase of India’s textile prowess to the world, but whether it will ring in more export orders is debatable as many of the problems and challenges the sector faces were swept under the carpet.
(Published in BusinessLine)
