With an aim to tap the burgeoning ethnic wear demand in India, apparel maker BIBA has collaborated with the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, and announced the launch of India Handloom Brand garments at all its stores. BIBA, through this initiative, will promote India Handloom Brand fabric at their stores.
The brand’s new Spring Summer Collection will have pieces with an additional tag of ‘India Handloom Brand’ to certify that the product is made using the quality fabric. This initiative will provide BIBA an opportunity to popularize Indian handloom products, which will in turn help the weavers and local artisans’ showcase their works on a wider platform and help provide a fashionable outlook to the product.
Managing Director, BIBA, Siddharth Bindra said, “We are proud to be associated with India Handloom Brand. BIBA, will be using the India Handloom Brand’s fabric to craft some exclusive pieces for their upcoming collections. The India Handloom Brand’s fabrics are of supreme quality as well as environment friendly. We are extremely excited to help revive and expand the Indian handloom industry and look forward to creating many more fashionable ranges with handloom fabrics.”
He added, “To start with, we have introduced Pochampally Ikkat fabrics from Telangana State and we are working on Maheshwar and Chanderi fabrics for next season.”
Ethnicwear Market
Since its inception in 1988, BIBA has witness a tremendous shift in preferences and taste of consumers and a shift in demand from unorganised to organised players.
“Nowadays, salwar kameez has become an integral part of every female’s wardrobe. From casual wear to office wear, to formal wear, the proliferation of the product has been tremendous. When my mom started her shop in Bombay, at that time there were only two shops that sold salwar kameez. Now there are more than five shops on every road and the number is only growing,” said Bindra
Even Technopak’s resonates the thought of Bindra. The report titled ‘Understanding India’s Ethnicwear Market’ says, the size of the Indian ethnic wear market was estimated at Rs 82,220 crore in 2014 and is expected to touch Rs 126,210 crore by 2019.
“The market is dominated by women’s ethnic wear which contributes 83 per cent to the total market followed by kids ethnic wear and men’s ethnic wear with shares of 9 per cent and 8 per cent,” according to the report.
Building Parallel Brands
With the prime objective of providing trend setting and fashionable Indian attire at an affordable price, BIBA products are available in all three categories of SKD (salwar kameez dupatta), M&M (mix and match) and unstitched fabric.
Apart from collaborating with designer Rohit Bal, BIBA also holds a minority stake in designer label Anju Modi and a 51 per cent stake in designer Manish Arora’s label Indian. BIBA Apparels also operates a separate brand Rangriti to cater to tier-II and tier-III markets.
“Our value fashion brand Rangriti has really picked up fast. We opened our first store 6-7 months back and since then we have already opened 15 stores and looking forward to add another 100 stores in next 12-18 months,” revealed Bindra.
Kidswear – An Exciting Opportunity
Buoyed by the success of its kidswear collection, BIBA has recently opened their first standalone kidswear store in Bengaluru. Garments at this store are priced between Rs 499 and Rs 5,999 and caters to girls between the age group of 2-13 years.
“Our standalone kids store has been a phenomenal success and it has been performing far better than we anticipated. We have now realised the underlined demand for kidswear and we are looking for more opportunities to open more kidswear stores. We are opening our second store in Marketcity Kurla next week,” revealed Bindra.
He further added, “We are looking forward to open 30 more standalone kids wear store as soon as possible. And we expect that in the next financial year, the kidswear should contribute anywhere between 7-9 per cent to our overall revenue.”
Expansion Plans
BIBA today has over 221 exclusive stores present in over 103 cities pan India. It is also available in large format stores such as Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Pantaloons and Central to name a few.
The company, which is planning to open 20-25 more stores this fiscal, is expecting to close 2016-17 with a turnover of Rs 700 crore.
“We are looking forward to open 200 more stores in next 2-3 years. Most probably they all will be flagship stores where the entire range can be displayed,” said Bindra.
“For expanding and building the brand further, we will be spending around Rs 250-300 crore over next two to three years where Rs 100 crore will be dedicated to store expansion, Rs 100 crore on brand presence and Rs 50 crore on other support areas to achieve the goals,” he concluded.
For expanding and building the brand further, BIBA will be spending around Rs 250-300 crore over next two to three years
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