Women's wear from men's brand

Indian women have changed their traditional facade with the changing society. With a rise in the number of working women, greater exposure through media and shifting fashion trend from traditional to western wear, Indian women’s wear market is thriving on vivacity.

The entry of foreign brands has pushed forward this transformation. According to a report, “Women wear market forecast to 2010” by RNCOS, the size of branded women apparel market would be Rs 18,000 crore by 2010 and will grow at a rate close to 25 per cent. Premium segment apparel is forecasted to account for close to 20 per cent of the total women apparel market by 2010. Western wear, along with lingerie, will emerge as the fastest growing segment. The size of branded western wear market for women alone is about Rs 4,400 crore, clocking a growth rate of 30 per cent.

Trend setting

Lack of time and convenience have directed the Indian women to go for on-the-shelf products. Since early 2000, women’s wear market was largely unorganised, whereas ready-made garments rule the shelves of men’s wear counter. With the entry of Madura Garments in 2002, which launched the women’s wear under the reputed brand Allen Solly, a new trend was set in. Taking the cue, several other companies, who so far positioned themselves in the niche market of men’s wear, started to come up with a wide gamut of product line, from formal wear to casual wear to party wear for women. The Indian company, Blackberry, too made an early entry in this segment. Comparatively, latecomers in the segment are Raymond’s Color Plus, Park Avenue and ITC’s Miss Player. Van Heusen, another well-known brand from Madura Garments, is also making its mark in the western wear segment. For the varieties of size and facilities of alteration at the retail outlets, fitting is never a problem for these ready-made wears.

Early mover

Speaking on Allen Solly’s move to enter women’s wear section, R. Satyajit, COO, Allen Solly, says, “Women approached Allen Solly for small-sized trousers. The idea stemmed from that. We saw a huge gap in the western wear category for women and decided to tap the market potential for this growing segment. The idea was to further augment Allen Solly’s positioning as a fashion forward and lifestyle brand.”

Allen Solly did enjoy the advantages of being an early mover. To invade the women’s bastion, these predominantly men’s wear company conducted several research work before taking the final plunge.

The same is reiterated by D.P.S. Kohli, Chairman of Koutons Retail.

“It was only after the feedback from our customers and channel partners that we took the plunge,” he says.

Koutons formally launched the women’s wear line, Les Femme, in April 2008. The trend sent a positive vibe across retailers. Earlier, it was reported that Raymond had charted a plan to capture 25 per cent share of the Rs 4,000 crore of the organised market of women’s wear.

Preparing the ground for brand launch

For brand Van Heusen, research, design, development, product innovation, sourcing and manufacturing and the launch process took about 18 months. In the process, the most important was spending days with real consumers to understand how they live and what they want to wear, working with a market research agency to get target group feedback on the Autumn Winter-06, merchandise preceded by launching the product line. This was done by recruiting 150 potential consumers.

“The brand also worked with consultants for testing fit across product categories and sizes on 168 consumers,” states Shital Mehta, COO of Van Heusen.

Challenges galore

Challenges mostly lie in understanding the needs of women and positioning the brand in a unique and differentiated manner. Mehta says, “Every brand has its boundaries. What it can do, what it cannot, how much can it stretch itself without diluting its own identity, how a predominantly men’s formal wear brand carved a niche for itself in premium women’s western wear and in the process became a true lifestyle brand. It involves creating a new business model and all that it entailed - environmental scan and opportunity sizing, consumer understanding that flowed out of research, product creation, brand positioning and consumer delight at the end of the journey.”

Product, price range

The product range includes all sorts of apparel like shirts, blouses, dresses, tunics, trousers, skirts, jeans, bermuda, capris, knits, sweaters, jackets, suit and blazer. Generally these stores stock a whole lot of accessories like bags, belts, shoes, cufflinks, stoles and jewellery. The price range varies between Rs 1,500 to Rs 5,000 onwards.

The upwardly mobile, professionally qualified and fashion-conscious women in the age group of 18 to 50 are the most prospective patrons of this category of apparel. Also, casual wear enjoys the maximum popularity because of its usage across multiple occasions, which forms almost 50 per cent of an average Indian’s wardrobe, says Satyajit of Allen Solly.

Ensuring fresh collection

Allen Solly has approximately 50,000 SKU’s in a season and after every six to eight weeks, the collection is changed. Raymonds, for Park Avenue Woman and ColorPlus Woman replaces its collections twice in a year, depending on the season, i.e. Spring-Summer and Autumn-Winter. Designing has a crucial role to play for merchandising. The design head with Van Heusen conceptualises the overall mmerchandise look, in line with the brand positioning. He is assisted by two designers, who are responsible for design creation to execution in terms of fit, samples etc.

Says Kohli, “We keep rolling fresh stock every now and then. In the world of fashion, which is everchanging and doesn't last for long, one has to be proactive. So we keep working hard for bringing in new fashion. At the same time, we start working on the new collection two seasons in advance.”

Brand exposure

Seasons campaigning to advertisement in media are the common practices of retailers to promote their brands. Co-sponsoring fashion events give the brands exposure to the who’s who of the fashion world. Catchy taglines like “Everyday couture” for Van Heusen and “Play it cool” for Miss Players endow the brands with its uniqueness that facilitates brand positioning with differentiation.

Such initiatives help in increasing consumer awareness and popularity about the brands and western wear for women in general. The design head with Van Heusen is responsible for styling the ad campaign for the season and co-ordinating various fashion shows. “We have used a combination of techniques to promote women’s wear like fashion shows, special schemes for Women’s Day apart from ATL activities,” says Yogesh Tiwari, General Manager (Marketing & Sales) of Blackberrys.

The trend is going to last since it is perfectly attuned to modern day life of the Indian women.