India and China present boundless opportunities in the luxury market and several designer labels are getting ready to forge ahead.
Nicole Miller’s account executive for business development, Rachna Mehra, will travel to India this month to look into selling to more stores there, and getting a distributor. Mehra, born in India, said she was familiar with the changes under way. “It’s a market that’s ripe, but it will probably take another two years for more conspicuous consumption.”
Nonetheless, the market does appear to be on its way. India’s luxury clothing and accessories business generates $434 million in sales annually and that figure should hit $800 million by 2010, according to the consulting group Technopak Advisors Ltd.
“People have the money and they want to spend it, not save it,” Mehra said.
She plans to look at specialty stores since department stores have shied away from luxury prices. Nicole Miller already sells to Shoppers Stop, a 24-unit chain in India. The company will explore a possible of partnership with a luxury apparel company to distribute the designer’s label there.
Of India’s more than one billion residents, some 400 million have the means to be high-end shoppers. “This 400 million is ripe to shop, but they might not get to the U.K. or the U.S. to shop,” she said.
Yigal Azrouel aims to broaden its international reach through Studio Zeta, a showroom in Milan that now sells its collection. China and India are among the targeted countries, a Yigal Azrouel spokeswoman said.
Oscar de la Renta Inc. is “watching closely,” but still feels the Indian market is very accessories-driven, said chief executive officer Alex Bolen.
The company does sell to one of the Joyce Boutique stores in Hong Kong, and the brand will be available in Shanghai when a store opens there.
During a panel discussion last month at the Asia Society, Lord & Taylor’s LaVelle Olexa, IMG’s Fern Mallis and designers Naeem Khan and Payal Singhal, and Style.com’s Laird Borelli discussed the burgeoning fashion market in India. Khan noted he has sold 600 units of a $3,800 silver dress. “It’s an amazing market,” he said.
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Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Valentino have moved in with stores of their own, and Wal-Mart is to follow, but the country is not saturated with Western stores.
Singhal noted that a wedding with 1,000 guests is a common occurrence, and many weddings include a week of parties. That, of course, results in great demand for cocktail dresses and other attire. With limited competition from international designers, Indian ones are profiting. “That is a business making a lot of designers in India very, very rich and they live very, very well,” Singhal said.