Spykar to enter footwear segment, expects to close FY17 with a Rs 300 crore turnover

Known for its youth appeal and vigour, Spykar is one of the most admired casualwear brands in India today. The first chapter of its success story was written over 20 years ago, when its founder and managing director Prasad Pabrekar, a qualified engineer with laundry business background, found his calling in the denim industry. The vast repertoire of technical knowledge in denim finishing gained via laundry business came in handy for him while setting up his own denim manufacturing venture.
Incepted as a denim manufacturer in 1992, Spykar today has earned for itself strong brand equity as India’s leading young fashion retailer. Even as denim remains its core product, the company has continued to add a range of products and categories to its portfolio to keep up with the changing market dynamics.
In an exclusive interview with Indiaretailing Bureau, Director & COO, Spkyar, Sanjay Vakharia talks about the evolution of the brand, its market positioning and strategy, and future plans.
Can you provide a brief background on Spykar? What is your market positioning?
Established in 1992, Spykar has evolved from a leading fashion jeans wear brand, and a dominant player in the Indian denim industry, to a lifestyle brand. The brand resonates with the youth and their aspirations. Keeping pace with the fashion dynamism, the brand at every point epitomizes global fashion and is a beacon of effortless style.
It’s been 25 years since the launch of the Spykar brand. How would you look at the journey so far? Tell us about the brand’s design and style inspirations.
Spykar’s journey started way back in1992, when Prasad Pabrekar founded the brand. He wanted to create a brand that embodied passion, creativity and youthfulness. The brand was created with the intent of serving the youth – our primary audience – with very current and relevant fashion, the best denim wear from the country. There are very few brands which are home grown, straddling each emerging channel of sale, and serving a very demanding young set of people who are most difficult to please and cater to.
Our brand’s aspirations are very clear and high – we wish to create the best jeanswear-led lifestyle brand in the country. India is nascent in terms of aspirations for seeking brands, and there are not many brands yet in the country, and fewer Indian brands. Spykar stands tall amongst all of them by the sheer fact that it has been around for more than two decades consistently creating hundreds of styles year on year. There aren’t many in the country doing that.
What is the brand’s current spread (number and format of stores) across sales channels?
Spykar retails from over 200 standalone stores, from key large format chains and from over 1,200 retailers across 330 cities in India. In a bid to bring ourselves as close to our customers as possible, we have launched our own portal, www.spykar.com. Apart from this, we are also present across key fashion portals and marketplaces.
Tell us about your product range? Who is your core target audience?
Right from denims, shirts, t-shirts, non-denim bottoms, and tops to accessories like belt, socks, perfumes, deodorants and bags, Spykar continues to set trends while it promises 100 per cent comfort and styling.
From day zero, the brand created was aimed at and confined to a very young audience. The clothing that we planned on retailing was denim. Prasad had prior experience in processing the fabric and garment by virtue of his having had business interests in a process house.
He went on the build a superb team – all of them still are with the brand serving it to the best of their abilities and in the process a greater brand.
The denim segment has many organized and unorganized brands. How has Spykar managed to establish a strong presence in such a competitive segment?
Our reach across various sale formats, and the product we offer both in terms of quality and the look have no comparison to what is offered in the unorganized sector. Also, the kind of audience a brand like Spykar caters too is no competition to the audience addressed by the unorganised sector.
Fashion is changing fast with new styles being introduced fresh off the runway every week. Do you think denim may be replaced by new types of clothing?
I doubt it. Denim has been a wardrobe staple for a long time now and will remain that. Various styles have evolved centred around denim, but those are not perceived as replacements. These are just variants.
Any plans on expanding internationally? What are your domestic expansion plans?
Currently, we are catering only to the domestic market. For now, there are no plans on going international. However, you can look forward to some interesting digital content in the near future.
We are also planning on getting into the footwear segment sometime soon, with an investment of Rs 20 crore.
What is the company’s turnover and profitability?
The company’s current strength is 250 people and we hope to close 2017 with a turnover of Rs 300 crore.