Ancestry Banking on Indian roots!
Ancestry Banking on Indian roots!

Ancestry is a contemporary Indian lifestyle and fashion brand from Future Style Lab. The brand offers a variety of fashionable clothing, home decor, footwear and accessories, which is constantly evolving and is in line with international trends, and yet interestingly rooted in Indian heritage and crafts. In an exclusive conversation with Indianretailer, Tiwari provides other insights on brands.

Tell us what  the rationale behind Ancestry is? Why could it not be an extension of fashion brand, Cover Story?

Ancestry presents a contemporary perspective on the Indian traditions and crafts. With its range of fashion and lifestyle products, it caters to women who are innately curious about their roots, but at the same time are also progressive, and early-adapters to the modern ways of living. With its sophistication, minimalism and slow-fashion approach, the brand is well distinguished from its fast-fashion, international-trends oriented counterpart, Cover Story.

What is the current footprint of Ancestry and what are the plans to increase this footprintgoing forward?

Currently, Ancestry is present in the four metro cities of India – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai– with six exclusive stores and one multi-brand outlet. The brand plans to expand to Bangalore, and to make its footprint in Delhi & Mumbai stronger with larger flagship stores.

How do you see the retail market of conscious fashion is evolving in India? According to you, what are the bottlenecks and opportunities in this segment?

There is a growing consciousness among the consumers about the impact of fashion on environment. Consumers are now–more than ever–educated and curious about the quality and contents of the fabrics and materials used to create what they wear. On the supply side, however, there are not enough brands catering to such sensibilities, thereby offering a huge market opportunity. But, further down, the creation of slow-fashion is a time consuming and expensive process, with slower product churns than what most Indian consumers are used to with fast-fashion brands. It’s the fine balance a brand creates that keeps it going.

Kindly shed light on the Omni channel strategy of the brand? Is there any plan to introduce exclusive webstore of the brand?

Ancestry is already working on a website, which should be up soon, and offers the comfort of e-shopping to its consumers. Development of an omnichannel strategy would be taken up subsequently.

Who do you see as your competition?

Most brands in this segment operate with different sensibilities, either on the product design side or on the material side. Given this, there are very few brands which Ancestry competes with.

At last, kindly highlight your growth plans?

The brand’s growth strategy would be primary reliant on a small set of large, exclusive stores, in addition to its website. While the retail footprint may not be as wide as that of some high-street brands, it would be much wider and stronger than most designer brands.

 

 

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