MUMBAI, India — Pradeep Hirani, chairman and managing director of the Kimaya retail chain, will today reveal his latest concept with a runway show at Lakme Fashion Week here.
Twelve well-known designers will walk the runway wearing their own designs to help unveil the new venture, which will be called Karmik. The multibrand concept is aimed at providing a sales channel for India’s burgeoning number of designers, who complain about the lack of retailers and infrastructure. This problem remains even as consumer spending on apparel continues to increase and brand awareness is on the rise.
“At the end of the day it is about the business,” said Indira Baikerikar, a designer with eight years of experience who continues to search for retail distribution, especially in India’s smaller cities.
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Karmik will produce lower-priced versions of the designers’ wares in an Indian version of fast-fashion retailing. The aim is to make these labels available to more consumers as India’s wealth continues to grow.
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“We did a study on the industry,” Hirani told WWD, “and we were promised a rainbow. We were told the premium fashion industry would be worth 300 billion rupees [$600 million at current exchange] by 2010. Then we found that it was really worth 12 billion rupees [$242 million]. Well, we’ve found a way to make not only a ladder forward, but also a new destination.
“What does the Indian woman want today? She wants branded garments at prices she can afford, and this is true the length and breadth of the country. In smaller towns there is hardly anything available between $30 and $400. If we can give her an Indian outfit at less than $100 across the country, we have a winner. It is a no-brainer,” he observed.
The first three Karmik stores will open next month in Bangalore, Chennai and Jaipur. These will be followed by eight others in cities such as Ludhiana and Chandigarh, where work on the stores is already in progress. Hirani sees the potential for up to 60 Karmik stores.
The designers walking the runway and whose designs will now be available in more affordable labels will include JJ Vallaya, Rocky S, Rohit Bal, Anamika Khanna, Ranna Gill, Shantanu & Nikhil, Rina Dhaka, Gaurav Gupta and Kavita Bhartia. These are among the top designers in the industry and with the media coverage of fashion weeks have become familiar names in more than just the metro cities of New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.
Hirani knows the designer market well: some Kimaya stores stock more than 180 different designer labels. He has also been able to drive Kimaya to retail growth and, last year, Franklin Templeton Private Equity Strategy spent 600 million rupees, or $13 million, to buy 20 percent of Kimaya, which they evaluated as being worth 3 billion rupees, or about $65.2 million.
Kimaya targets the affluent, fashion conscious woman while Karmik will target the more mass segment, especially in smaller cities where availability of brands is a challenge.
India’s retail industry is estimated to be currently worth $550 billion, but only about 6 percent of this is in the organized sector.