Hermès Flagship, Mumbai | Source: skyscrapercity.com

In our second article this week focused on India, we investigate the barriers impeding the growth of India’s international luxury goods market, which go beyond the recently lifted restrictions on foreign direct investment.

MUMBAI, India — “By the end of 2015, emerging markets should account for more than 50 percent of luxury sales,” Antoine Colonna, a luxury analyst at the asset manager Carmignac Gestion in Paris, told The Wall Street Journal in the spring of 2011. “This isn’t evolution. It’s revolution,” she continued.

But in India, the revolution has yet to take hold. Despite having the world’s second-fastest growing major economy and a rapidly expanding population of high net worth individuals, the country’s market for international luxury goods, worth around $1.3 billion, remains surprisingly small. In fact, while China currently accounts for an estimated 10 percent of the global luxury market, India makes up a mere 1 to 2 percent.

So why has India’s market for international luxury goods failed to take off?

FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT REGULATIONS

Recently, enormous attention has been focused on India’s foreign direct investment (FDI) laws, which for years capped foreign ownership of India-based retail operations at 51 percent. In a landmark decision earlier this month, India formally lifted restrictions on foreign investment in its single-brand retail sector, allowing global fashion brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Burberry to acquire 100 percent ownership of their India operations and trade without local partners.

“This was the last frontier to open. It will make India a preferred market,” Tikka Shatrujit Singh, chief representative in Asia for French luxury conglomerate LVMH, told BoF. But the decision comes with a caveat: foreign companies are required to source 30 percent of their production from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in India. “We’re delighted with the decision, but the 30 percent caveat about working with small industries has to be carefully looked into, since there are concerns over child labour and quality factory production,” added Singh.

“Sourcing from Indian SMEs will restrict investments since it’s difficult for brands to match their quality standards and positioning,” said Abhay Gupta, executive director at Blues Clothing Company, a firm that represents Versace, Corneliani, Cadini and John Smedley in India. “Besides, most brands cannot alter their DNA and signature specialisation of ‘made in country of origin.’”

“A bureaucrat’s delight, a business person’s nightmare,” commented Darshan Mehta, president and CEO of Reliance Brands, a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, which represents international brands Ermenegildo Zegna, Diesel, Paul & Shark and Kenneth Cole in India. “India’s cottage industries are not equipped to even produce H&M quality goods, forget catering to luxury brands.”

But new sourcing requirements aside, FDI reform only addresses one of the many challenges that international fashion brands face in India.

HIGH IMPORT DUTIES

For one, high import tariffs mean that luxury products can cost between 20 and 30 percent more in Mumbai and Delhi than in London or Paris. “The government has assured us that at an appropriate time, the duty structure will be adjusted to realistic levels,” said Singh. But for now, the problem persists. “We have only seen year-on-year growth, but the reason that the business suffers, even if slightly, is on account of high import duties,” said Bertrand Michaud, president of Hermès India. In fact, affluent Indians, who are extremely price-conscious even when shopping for luxury goods, buy more than 50 percent of their international luxury goods abroad.

Brands also face significant difficulties finding suitable retail space and understanding and catering to Indian tastes and sensibilities, challenges that can make partnerships with savvy local allies highly advantageous.

NO RUSH TO END LOCAL PARTNERSHIPS

Indeed, despite recent changes to FDI law, few brands are in a hurry to snap their ties with their Indian partners. “The FDI announcement doesn’t affect Hermès at all,” said Michaud. “Our partners in India, Ashok and Neelam Khanna, have been friends of the brand family for 50 years. They are in sync with our aesthetics and the Indian market.”

“The relaxation in FDI norms is a progressive move in the economic reforms process; it opens up the economy further to competition from global players, resulting in better processes, improved supply chains, better pricing and of course, more jobs,” said Sanjay Kapoor, managing director of Genesis Luxury Fashion, which holds Indian franchising and distribution rights for Burberry, Paul Smith, Bottega Veneta, Canali, Jimmy Choo and Etro. “But on their own, brands may not have enough understanding of the Indian market, its nuances and customer demographics; all critical to the luxury retail business,” he added.

A SCARCITY OF SUITABLE RETAIL SPACE

In particular, the challenge of finding suitable retail space in a country without equivalents to London’s Bond Street or New York’s Fifth Avenue makes local knowledge highly valuable. “One of my jobs is to continue an ongoing dialogue with real estate developers,” said Singh. “Purchasing property is extremely expensive and quality rental space in India comes at a premium.” Ambiance, cleanliness and security can be significant concerns, as well. As a result, luxury retailers have historically favoured opening stores in five-star hotels and upscale malls. But in cities like Mumbai, for example, brands face a shortage of premium mall space and selecting the right retail location is no simple task for those unfamiliar with the local landscape.

Hermès was the first international luxury brand operating in India to open a stand-alone boutique with an open storefront to the street in South Mumbai’s Fort District in 2011. The brand’s two other outlets in Delhi and Pune are both housed in hotels.

“Retail is about detail,” said Mehta. “Galleria gets 10 footfalls a day! Tod’s had to shut down,” he continued, referring to retail space at South Mumbai’s Hilton hotel. “The next best bet is malls. Palladium in Mumbai is doing well,” he added, mentioning a luxury mall in Mumbai’s Lower Parel neighbourhood that houses international brands like Burberry and Zara (which in India is positioned as a premium label).

CULTURAL COMPLEXITY & LOCAL LUXURY COMPETITORS

International brands operating in India also face a market with cultural complexity and culturally-attuned, local luxury goods. “Indian consumers are price-sensitive when buying Western high fashion. They won’t spend easily on that one lakh-plus rupee ($2,000) eveningwear dress. But they’d splurge on Indian couture-based wedding wear in a jiffy,” said Sanchita Ajjampur, a design consultant to international fashion brands including Lanvin, Gucci, Marni and Etro, underscoring the enormous cultural and economic importance of India’s wedding market and the local designers who cater to it. Indeed, a wedding outfit by Indian designer Sabyasachi, for example, can come at couture prices, which leaves less “share of wallet” for international brands. “This probably explains the decision to launch the Hermès India sari collection,” she continued.

“I am not here to get tourists. I want Indians. I want Hermès to be in the hands of Indians,” said Christian Blanckaert, senior executive vice-president of Hermès, at the launch of the brand’s first India store at New Delhi’s Oberoi hotel back in 2008. But achieving this is no simple task. To attract local clientele, Hermès has experimented with a number of India-inspired product lines, including a recently launched line of saris, based on the company’s famous scarves.

Other international fashion brands have also offered Indianised products, tailored to local tastes, like Bottega Veneta’s Knot India clutch, Jimmy Choo’s Chandra clutch and Canali’s Nawab line, all designed to cater to the country’s large wedding market. But while most India experts emphasise the importance of a tailored offering, localising product isn’t a guarantee of commercial success. “India-inspired collections add PR value to the brand, but they don’t always translate into serious sales,” said Mehta.

“Every brand has a different approach; global but tinged with local ideas,” said Singh. Indeed, knowing exactly when and how much to localise is a delicate act and each brand has a different formula that must be fine-tuned to its specific positioning and target customer. “When we tied up with Diesel, my friends asked me, ‘Are you launching desi (local) Diesel or the real Diesel?’” Mehta continued. “Luxury brands have a Western quotient attached to them. That’s what adds the aspirational value for Indians.”

LONG-TERM DIVIDENDS

Indeed, despite recent FDI reform, the on-going challenges of cultural complexity, scarcity of suitable retail space and high import duties mean the “Indian problem” is far from solved. But for brands with staying power, India presents a compelling long-term opportunity. According to Swiss wealth manager Julius Baer, the number of high net worth individuals in India with assets of over $1 million is expected to reach 403,000 by 2015. Furthermore, according to the United Nations, India is set to enjoy favourable demographic momentum for another three decades and will add over 241 million people to its working-age population by 2030 (far more than Brazil or China) boosting the country’s economic growth prospects in the coming years.

“Doing business in India doesn’t have a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am formula,” said Gupta. “It’s a slow process but it’s one that will eventually pay long-term dividends.”

Shweta Shiware is a freelance journalist based in London and Mumbai.

Bandana Tewari | Photo: Johan Sandberg for Industrie Magazine

PARIS, France — Bandana Tewari has made a name for herself as one of the fashion industry’s smartest commentators. As fashion features director of Vogue India, she has quickly become the go-to source for anyone who wants to learn about the country’s rapidly evolving luxury market. Recently, she was named to Industrie magazine’s Fashion Media A-list, alongside other leading fashion commentators including Cathy Horyn, Tim Blanks and Suzy Menkes.

So, I am delighted to reveal that Bandana Tewari will pen a regular column for The Business of Fashion, offering her unique perspective on the Indian luxury market, starting with this interview originally conducted for Industrie.

I sat down with Bandana in between shows during Paris Fashion Week in September to talk about India’s fast growing fashion market, tailoring luxury products to Indian sensibilities, the power of Bollywood and wearing Tarun Tahiliani saris with Manolo Blahniks.

BoF: How would you describe your point of view on fashion, your angle?

BT: Every time someone asks, ‘How do I become a fashion journalist?’ I say, ‘Forget fashion.’ You’ve got to be a social anthropologist first. That for me is the hook. I don’t think I could think of fashion in a uni-linear way. Fashion is like a fantastic hydra-headed monster that is influenced by everything around us – pop culture, state of the economy, global warming, you name it. I can only understand fashion in this holistic way.

BoF: You’ve been working in fashion for eight years now, and India has gone through a massive change in that time. Can you tell us what you’ve observed as India has become part of global fashion culture?

BT: In India everything happened so quickly. In the first phase, when fashion became corporatised and institutionalised into Fashion Weeks, it started off being very Indian. Then the media cried foul: ‘No one’s wearing just these traditional clothes – what are these Indian designers doing?!’ And then suddenly everyone was into – what I think is a reductionist Indian fashion term – ‘fusion-fashion’, as in Indo-Western fusion, which was basically Western silhouettes with dollops of very ethnic nuances and motifs. We were following all the clichés that we punish the rest of the world for using on us. A nice little jacket but paisleyed to death, you know? Or skirts that were too embellished.

BoF: But today, Indian fashion has morphed into something more defined.

BT: The third stage of fashion in India was the period when we reconciled ourselves to the fact that there is a certain DNA that cannot be taken out of the country. We do have a forte that lies in handicraft, in decorative arts, in embellishments, in technique. But what designers started doing was to not use them literally: they took little bits of it and used it in fluid silhouettes. And then we had beautiful collections from designers like Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Anamika Khanna, Varun Bahl, Savio, James Ferreira. They brought this very coherent vision of India, which unfortunately I feel the Western world still hasn’t seen or utilised.

BoF: What do you mean?

BT: Well, here we are at Paris Fashion Week for spring/summer 2012. I look around me there are events promoting all young emerging designers from London. I’ve just come back from a CFDA presentation of American designers. Then, you have the Koreans in ‘Seoul to Soul’ in the Museum of Decorative Arts. It’s phenomenal how much support different countries are offering to these designers. When I went to ‘Seoul to Soul’ I thought, ‘We now need to’ – and I’m definitely going to spearhead this –‘get five, six Indian designers to have a platform like this, where we, as Vogue India perhaps, can support it.’ I saw the emerging talent, and we are no less accomplished.

BoF: But we’ve been through this phase where Sabyasachi and Ashish N Soni were showing in New York and Manish Arora was showing in London. And it seems to me that, except for Manish Arora, most Indian designers have gone back to refocus on the Indian market.

BT: Well we’re at the stage where a top Indian designer like Sabyasachi Mukherjee can sell a garment for the same price as a couture dress by Dior and conclude, ‘I know my forte lies in doing Indian clothes for Indian people and catering to a market that is worth close to 11, 12 billion US dollars per annum’ – which is the Indian wedding industry. Some designers are like Manish, who [has shown] his first collection for Paco Rabanne: he’s very clear he wants to make it in the international arena. But other designers have decided their marketing focus is in India, and they are doing phenomenally well in their own country.

BoF: And maybe that makes sense. Because some global brands have failed to understand that the Indian market requires a really tailored offering.

BT: Absolutely. Not just tailored, but you have to understand India in terms of its spending power and when that money is spent. In a certain month you’re not supposed to be ostentatious, so forget about any grand opening in that month. You have to do full research of the rituals of India. Come August, September and right up to February, it’s the wedding season. It’s also the season with all the top festivals, Diwali, the festival of lights, where money is spent, buying for others and for yourself.

BoF: Do you think global brands are starting to understand this?

BT: Absolutely, and to respond to it too. Gucci did a limited-edition ‘Made for India’ series, which you can only buy in India. And it catered the Indian sensibility, which is a little bit bling. The India Knot clutch, which is by Bottega Veneta, was a sell-out, inspired by the architecture of India. Then Hermès recently launched six or seven beautiful saris – an extension of the scarves they’re doing, and I can tell you now, it is going to fly. There are so many customisations happening, on a small level: Jimmy Choo does bridal shoes for the Indian wedding industry. All these brands realise that just a bit of tailoring for the Indian aesthetic goes a long way for them to establish themselves in the hearts of the Indian consumer.

BoF: You have this interesting dichotomy between these big local Indian designers and the international superbrands. How does this divide represent itself in Vogue India, in terms of editorial and advertisers?

BT: When you flick through Vogue India, everything is customised for the Indian reader. So we put Indian designers alongside all the international designers irrespective of who’s advertising and who’s not. Because if you walk down the streets in Bombay, go to cocktail parties, go to dinner parties, we’re still wearing Tarun Tahiliani saris but with Manolo Blahniks. We are taking international fashion the way we want to. Not necessarily getting into gowns yet, because that’s something to be talked about and discussed further. The way we are indulging in [Western] fashion is really through accessories.

BoF: And so the consumer has created their own fashion fusion in the way they dress.

BT: Absolutely. So there is no way Vogue India would not put designers together. You know, we don’t care that Tarun Tahiliani doesn’t show at New York Fashion Week. He shows in India Fashion Week and that’s good enough for us. And he sells and he’s loved by his consumers and our readers. So if he’s doing a black sari that becomes the It-sari of the season and we do a ‘Midnight Black is Back’ page in the front of book, you’ll see a Jil Sander black shirt with that Tarun Tahiliani black sari, with a Dior black clutch and a black dress by Gaurav Gupta, who’s a young Indian designer.

BoF: Do you also Vogue India as playing a role in educating consumers about international fashion? Because before Vogue fashion magazines in India were not nearly at the international level.

BT: When we launched we said ‘education first’. Every brand story we did was almost like a profile: the legacy of Louis Vuitton, of Bottega Veneta. We’d customise it for our Indian readers. So if it was Gucci, it was about what Frida Giannini thinks about women all over the world and what she thinks about Indian women. And we’d weave the brand story with it so they get to know about the brand. A few seasons later, the next stage was to engage international designers properly with the Indian consumer. So it was about going back to the designers and saying, ‘How are you engaging out customers? What is it about India?’ So all our stories would revolve around that.

BoF: Condé Nast set up Vogue India as a fully owned subsidiary, so Condé Nast India operates as part of Condé Nast International. How does that relationship work?

BT: We were the first international magazine in India to be 100 per cent owned by the parent company, Condé Nast, and it makes a huge difference when you don’t have another partner. Your marketing strategy, your sales strategy, your editorial strategy is in tandem with the rest of fully-owned Vogues all over the world. In terms of the quality and content we want to bring to the consumer, I’d say it’s as good as even American Vogue, British Vogue. And that happens because we have full control of our magazine’s destiny.

BoF: Do you have interaction with the other Vogue Editions? Do you take content from time to time from British Vogue or American Vogue?

BT: We do that all the time. Because someone picking up Vogue in India wants to know what’s happening in the rest of the world too. So we take syndications, not just the English-language magazines but from Vogue Japan Vogue, Portugal, Brazil. We are global citizens. But globalisation is a dirty word today: I think the international community is getting so tired of everything that’s globalised. So we’re not homogenised – we have such an intrinsic indigenous quality to our lifestyle and we celebrate that. Because that indigenous quality is absolutely imperative.

BoF: You mentioned cultural clichés earlier. I wanted to talk about the power of Bollywood. There’s a lot of Bollywood in your covers. Is it is still very powerful force?

BT: Bollywood is by far the biggest marketing tool for anything that you do in India. I’d prefer to call it Indian cinema, but Bollywood is what it is right now. And we took a conscious decision to Voguify the Bollywood styles.

BoF: How do you mean?

I mean all these young actors and actresses are gorgeous. Whether you like the kind of movies they choose to act in… that’s a subjective choice. But we took these amazing women who are successful and extremely powerful. And there were a lot of designer gowns and designer saris, and they’re on the cover with the top make-up artists and photographers: Patrick Demarchelier shot our first cover. We’ve had Gisele on the cover wearing an Indian-style bikini done by Tarun Tahiliani and a Balmain jacket, and we’ve had Bollywood stars in Gucci dresses. So we’ve brought that Vogue element to Bollywood. And it has changed the way people now want to present themselves in public. Because the whole red carpet thing didn’t exist in India then, but it does now.

A version of this interview first appeared in Industrie magazine.

Front Row at Lakmé Fashion Week | Photo: BoF

MUMBAI, India – From the minute I landed in Bombay—as everyone here still calls it—the rapidly shifting nature of contemporary India was apparent. Instead of waiting in agonisingly long queues at the airport, I breezed through immigration, customs and bag collection in only 45 minutes. That’s faster than one can make it through most terminals at Heathrow or JFK these days.

Outside the airport, cranes building a new terminal towered over those waiting with signs to pick up arriving international passengers with names like Padamsee and Singh, but also Takahashi and Levine, signs of the globalisation that is quickly transforming this city into an international melting pot.

The last time I attended a fashion week in India was five years ago, so when IMG kindly invited me to attend this season’s Lakmé Fashion Week, I was curious to see how things had changed. With GDP growth racing along at a blistering 8 percent per year, and a growing sense of national pride, there were bound to be changes in India’s fashion business landscape as well.

INDIA IN FOCUS

Sabyasachi Summer/Resort 2011 | Photo: BoF

In his new book, India Calling – An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking, author and New York Times online columnist Anand Giridharadas writes that “the deepest change I witnessed in India was…in how people conceived their possibilities. Indians now seemed to know that they didn’t have to leave…to have their personal revolutions.”

By the same token, the deepest change I noted in my conversations with Indian fashion designers this time around was that instead of trying in vain to conquer an over-saturated and hyper-competitive international industry, they now have their sights set on a nascent market at home that is showing growing signs of consumerism and interest in fashion.

Sabyasachi Mukherjee, one of the country’s brightest fashion stars whom I first met when he was showing in New York, said that he decided to pull back after struggling to gain traction abroad and sensing a growing opportunity at home. According to a 2009 study by Grail Research, the market for Indian designer fashion was expected to grow 178 percent between 2008 and 2012, reaching a small, but respectable $189m a year, still only a fraction of one percent of the global market.

“If you look at the Indian market, it is becoming stronger and stronger. It would be foolish not to address that challenge and possibility,” he says. “I think it’s very important for an Indian designer to consolidate his position in India first, make himself stronger and then take his brand international as opposed to the other way around.”

The results of this new focus were evident on the runway, as Mr. Mukherjee put on the best show of the week, both in terms of the collection itself and the styling, choreography and music.

“A lot of Indian women like wearing clothing which defines them as Indian,” says Mr. Mukherjee. “I might be doing Western clothing, I might be doing Indian clothing, but there is always a common denominator, and that is India.  If you look at the approach, if you look at the artistry, if you look at the textiles, there’s always a strong indigenous feel.”

Even some of the strongest emerging designers at Lakmé Fashion Week like Shivan and Narresh, whose design sensibilities are more Westernised, said they wanted to build foundations in India before making any concerted efforts to go abroad.

This is the right choice. The country’s cultural traditions, craftsmanship and climate make the Indian fashion market a tough one for foreign brands to penetrate, so local designers have a distinct home-turf advantage.

WHY TWO FASHION WEEKS?

Little Shilpa Summer/Resort 2011 | Photo: BoF

One cannot discuss fashion in India without discussing its highly politicised fashion system. Once upon a time, there was only one major fashion week, put on by the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), produced by IMG and sponsored by Lakmé, the country’s largest cosmetics company.

But in late 2005, when the FDCI controversially tripled the event sponsorship fee and found a new production partner, IMG and Lakmé decided to set up their own event in Bombay, splitting the Indian fashion community in two and creating a rift that has endured until today.

Many of the more established and commercially successful fashion designers chose to show at FDCI’s ‘official’ event in Delhi, while IMG-Lakmé attracted those with links to Bollywood and strong personal relationships with the organisers. Over time, Lakmé Fashion Week also emerged as the country’s premier launching pad for young design talent, through a variety of programs designed to cultivate and promote new names, something that the fashion establishment in Delhi was loathe to do, at least at first.

Still, this means that buyers, editors and international guests need to attend both fashion weeks to get a full picture of the market here, or that designers need to show at both fashion weeks to reach the full audience.

We have made this point before, but the Indian fashion industry would benefit greatly from a single, consolidated fashion week. As it stands, organisers appear to be struggling to fill five days of show slots in both cities with collections that truly merit runway exposure. Too many of the collections this week were poorly made, in cheap fabrics, without a clear design point of view or consumer target.

In short, the standards for showing at either fashion week India remain too low. Instead of having two fashion weeks with a few patches of excellence in a sea of mediocrity, India could have one strong fashion week with truly exacting standards, creating an incentive for all designers to up their game and lifting the quality overall.

However, that doesn’t look likely to happen. Most people I spoke to seemed to think a reconciliation was nigh impossible, the tension between the two camps being so pronounced. For the time being at least, India will continue to have two fashion weeks, neither of which really brings to bear the full business and creative potential that this country has to offer.

A FASHION WEEK FOR CONSUMERS

Photographers pit at Lakme Fashion Week | Photo: BoF

At Lakmé Fashion Week, there were only 190 buyers present this season, with 95 percent of the business and the lion’s share of buyers coming from within India, and buyers from the Middle East making up most of the balance.

But actually, that might be okay. As the fashion industry elsewhere grapples with the rise of consumer participation, Lakmé Fashion Week is not just tolerating it, but is embracing its consumer side. It’s a clever way of differentiating itself from its Delhi counterpart, which has proven marginally stronger in terms of wholesale trade and international buyers.

Fueled by the undeniable power of Bollywood and the voracious Indian media, Lakmé Fashion Week generates pages and pages of column inches, thousands of photos, and hours of television coverage every day. There are as many photographers in the pit here as there are in the main fashion capitals – except that they are all from the domestic market. It’s hard to fathom, but there are over 50 dedicated news channels alone on Indian TV, which along with the live-streaming of shows, brings fashion week straight to consumers all over this vast country, in several different languages.

One problem with this kind of media frenzy is that there are few commentators and observers qualified to review and report on the collections. The arrival of Vogue, by many accounts, has lifted the overall standard of fashion reporting, but still most of the attention is paid to the Bollywood stars who sit in the front row and who walk the runway to deliver ‘show-stoppers.’ Some of the collections are an after thought, and in some cases have nothing to do with what is actually available for sale.

There are some brands and businesses, however, which are using the Lakmé Fashion Week platform in a more commercially savvy way. Whereas most fashion weeks at this time of year—including the FDCI fashion week in Delhi—focus on Autumn/Winter 2011, Lakmé Fashion Week designers were showing Summer/Resort 2011 collections, some of which will actually be available to consumers in store and online in a matter of weeks.

As Pearl Uppal, chief-executive and co-founder of Fashion and You—India’s rapidly growing answer to Gilt Groupe and a sponsor of Lakmé Fashion Week—explained, following a successful trial last season, capsule collections from several emerging designers will be available on the website in only 21 days. Likewise, the stylish Sabina Chopra who regularly appeared in fresh-off-the-runway Sabayasachi, and works with the designer on business development, reported that the entire runway collection will be available in the brand’s stores in a matter of weeks.

How do they do that, you ask? Most Indian designers control or own the means of production and are therefore able to prioritise the manufacture of small volumes right after fashion week to capitalise on the consumer buzz generated by catwalk shows, something most Western brands are still struggling to do.

SPONSORSHIP, TO THE POINT OF DISTRACTION

Kallol Datta at Lakmé Fashion Week | Photo: BoF

But the consumer-focused nature of Lakme Fashion Week also has its pitfalls. Taking a cue from Lincoln Center in New York, Lakmé Fashion Week is an important money spinner for IMG, and most of that revenue is generated from sponsorship deals with the likes of Lakmé, but also a host of other companies including Aircel, a mobile phone provider, Blenders Pride, a liquor company, and Lavazza, the coffee company.

Everywhere you look there is a company logo or a brand-sponsored booth. In a consumer-oriented environment this kind of branding seems alright, and IMG of course needs to make money from the event, but the right balance must be struck in order to maintain the event’s integrity and so designer collections can be shown in the best way possible, without unnecessary distraction.

Unfortunately, this was not always the case. There were times when the branding at Lakmé Fashion Week simply went too far. At the ‘DHL Future of Fashion’ show, emerging design talents Atsu Sekhose and Kallol Datta had been instructed to draw inspiration from the colours of the DHL logo. When the yellow and red collections appeared, bathed in yellow DHL light, under yellow and red DHL boxes hung like lanterns all the way down the runway, a line was crossed into crassness during the shows of two of the most hotly-tipped talents of the week.

While events like these would be impossible without sponsors like DHL, they must also be willing to do so in a way that enhances the designer presentations, not detract from them.

AN OPTIMISTIC FASHION COMMUNITY

Gulshan Randhawa and Avni Doshi at LFW | Photo: BoF

Leaving the business and catwalk shows aside, the undoubted highlight of my week in Bombay was experiencing the infectious optimism of the people who are shaping the future of Indian fashion at this nascent stage. They might not yet have all the answers, but they are still excited for what lies ahead and seem willing and open to try new things. As a friend wrote to me upon hearing my reflections, being terribly jaded is a privilege of the overdeveloped ‘first world’.

From new friends like Manou, India’s answer to The Sartorialist, to old friends like the uber-smart fashion authority Bandana Tewari, the hospitality and kindness shown to me by the Indian fashion community was inspiring. I particularly enjoyed meeting the effervescent Bollywood costume designer turned fashion designer, Manish Malhotra—whose show was a beautiful celebration of the best in unashamedly Indian clothing—and chatting with Masaba Gupta, Shivan and Narresh and Little Shilpa, young designers who are creating their own fashion revolution here.

But far from being an Indian-only club, the fashion industry here also relies on talented individuals from around the world, many of whom plan to come for a few months, and end up staying here for years. Fern Mallis, who sat next to me during the shows whispering her words of wisdom and experience into my ears, has been coming to India for over ten years to advise IMG in getting Lakmé Fashion Week off the ground. Caroline Young, a sort of English fashion fairy godmother introduced me to many of the country’s top new talents. And the kind Mathieu Gugumus Leguillon, who used to design at Lanvin under Alber Elbaz, was always decked out in the coolest menswear from The Bungalow, his line for the local lifestyle boutique Bungalow Eight (not to be confused with the New York and London nightclubs of the same name.)

Last but not least comes IMG South Asia managing director Ravi Krishnan and his stellar team, who organised a fashion week that ran like clockwork in a country where punctuality isn’t always a priority. Thanks in particular to Amtosh Singh, Gulshan Randhawa and Anjana Sharma for helping me make the most of a trip that was ultimately too short. I hope to come back again very soon.

Imran Amed is founder and editor of the The Business of Fashion

DLF Emporio, New Delhi | Source: DLF

MUMBAI, India — According to Forbes, India has the fastest-growing population of millionaires in the world. But for Western luxury brands operating in the country, grabbing a piece of the market has proven more difficult than anticipated and many are in the process of re-conceiving their India strategies.

Part of the problem is that Western luxury brands don’t seem to understand Indian consumers. When they first entered India, they created splashy advertising campaigns targeting the old money elite. But the results were poor, largely because this customer segment consists of frequent international travelers who overwhelmingly prefer the experience of purchasing Western luxury goods abroad, where brands offer them wider choice, better service and more competitive pricing than what’s currently available inside India.

In response, brands are starting to refocus on new pockets of wealth emerging in regional hubs across the country. But a private report on luxury in India produced by management consultants AT Kearney and The Economic Times revealed that the newly affluent lack sufficient knowledge and awareness of luxury brands to drive significant sales. Furthermore, the current strategy of establishing a large retail footprint supported by traditional mass marketing is not working.

Indeed, in order to succeed in India, luxury brands need to localise their marketing strategies.  This goes further than just putting an Indian print on a bag or collaborating with a local celebrity. A multitude of cultures, languages, religions, festivals, colours and tastes make up this land of 1.1 billion people. So, it’s about understanding the difference between the flamboyant nature of a Punjabi customer and the more reserved nature of a Gujarati, and speaking to each of them in the specific cultural register that they respond to.

For example, luxury brand Montblanc — which successfully operates nineteen retail points across first, second and third tier cities in India — has regionalised all their marketing material.

“There is a clear distinction in customer values between [Indian] states,” says Tanya Kapinda of ID8 Media Solutions, an agency which works with Montblanc’s marketing division in India. “Any time a letterhead, invitation or a newsletter is produced, we customise [it] according to the local language and other aesthetic considerations such as colours used and the amount of decoration.”

When creating invitations for potential consumers in the Punjab in northern India, for example, the invitations are more lavish and the language more boisterous than those sent to consumers in southern India. “It ensures you are connecting personally to your consumer and customers respond to this,” she adds.

Brands like Louis Vuitton and Rolls Royce have also localised their approaches, identifying  important events and celebrations amongst potential clients and arriving with personalised gifts or a surprise car service for the occasion.

Getting traction in the Indian sub-continent has been a challenge for every Western luxury brand that has tried to crack this complex new market. Those brands who are willing to better understand and connect with the local Indian consumer will be the ones who are most successful.

Agata Seidel is a writer and consultant based in New York.

A piece from the Battle Royal collection by littleshilpa

We’re wrapping up BoF India Fashion Week with the wonderful story of Shilpa Chavan, a Bombay milliner whose sophisticated urban headdresses have caught the attention of Style.com and ended up at the AlSabah Art & Design Gallery in Kuwait.

MUMBAI, India — There’s no doubt that India is a treasure chest of craft and creativity. Indeed, these were the two words most heard at the recently concluded IHT conference in New Delhi, after the two words in the program title: “Sustainable Luxury”.

While the images conjured up by the word craft are often of weavers in villages or hand embroiderers in factories, to prove that contemporary craft is alive and kicking in urban India, meet Shilpa Chavan—the maverick milliner of Mumbai and proprietor of littleshilpa, her nickname and brand.

Littleshilpa is a case in point of incredible Indian creativity in need of a bit of strategic guidance and fashion business savvy. But in the subcontinent’s burgeoning fashion industry, executives with grounded commercial experience are few and far between. And so the question becomes, how does India commercialise its craft and creativity?

For Shilpa, all the creative pre-requisites appear to be in place. She is a trained milliner, shifting between various roles as a costume stylist, jewellery designer and installation artist. There’s a high level of integrity in her designs, inspired by a simple nostalgia for Mumbai, which translates into what she calls, “a revivalism of sorts.” Thanks to her fascination with archaic knick-knacks and the Mumbai bazaars where she finds them, she tends to focus on one form intensely, starting with something very ordinary or humble—an old military badge, a bangle, or rubber flip flops worn by India’s everyman.

“It’s got less to do with being Indian,” she says, “than it is about looking at shapes and objects differently. When I find a shape, be it a rubber slipper or a paper kite, the first thing I think of is how it could be worn on the head. Then I think downwards into jewellery and other accessories like badges, belts…but it really starts with the shape.”

Using a gifted natural eye refined at Central Saint Martins and trained under British milliner Philip Treacy, Shilpa has single-handedly revived India’s history of headgear for urban women to wear. And so long as she’s commissioned to use her own hands—“I hate depending on tailors and stuff”— to create something crafty to wear, she says she’s happy.

But for how long?

The big questions on her mind these days are ones of positioning and commercial viability. “Because of the recession some people advise me to stick to what I’m doing instead of investing in something that’s mass. I tend to believe this. I think we’ve over killed the brand thing and now luxury will return to what it used to be—having that one special piece, being design-oriented and having more respect for the story.”

In March, Shilpa showed at Lakmé India Fashion Week (LFW), showcasing her Battle Royale collection which focused on taking “obsolete luxury” and putting it in a “modern context”. Buyers from Villa Moda picked up a few pieces. But a funny thing happened to the shipment en route to Kuwait. What was originally bought for a commercial fashion purpose was rerouted to an art gallery by the common owner, Sheikh Majed Al-Sabah. The concept store I Love Souk, part of the AlSabah Art & Design Gallery in Kuwait, sold her work as fashion-art instead.

An unplanned move, “but now”, she says, “I know that’s the middle space I want to inhabit—an artist and a designer who makes commercial pieces once in a while. I don’t want to bring out a collection every season purely for retail. I mean, I can’t, even if I wanted to.” This is a model that seems to have worked with Contemporary artists like Murakami, who has collaborated more than once on commercial products with Louis Vuitton, while still maintaining a presence in the art world.

The same could prove to be true for Shilpa. In the past few years Shilpa’s creations have organically found their way into an art exhibition in Lille, France and the India Now season at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. And commercially, her pieces are sold at Barcelona’s Drap-Art gallery, My Sugar Land (a fashion concept store in London focused on emerging designers), as well as her own boutique in Goa called National Permit.

A mixed bag for sure. But maybe that’s not a bad thing in such a world as we are in now. The future of such made-by-hand, made-in-India product, which hangs somewhere between installation art and collector’s fashion item indicates the need for a special place, free from the constraints of commercial enterprise, and this duality of commercial and artistic activity allows for that.

But, when it comes to developing and executing such a strategy, fashion designers from emerging markets should not settle for learning by luck and chance. Instead, they should learn from those who have already forged such a path, and stuck to it. Manish Arora, a homegrown Indian fashion designer, is a good place to start.

If she can find a way to put local craft into a global strategy as Arora has done, she will find herself in as good a place as he is. Maybe not rich, but happy, clear-minded, busy and 100 percent prime for investment. No doubt, like Manish, Shilpa will be praised for her boundless creativity wherever she goes. But long-term success will require more than critical acclaim.

Sita Wadhwani is a writer, fashion stylist and trend scout based between New Delhi and Mumbai.

Cover of the premier issue of GQ India, courtesy of GQ

On Day Three of India Fashion Week on BoF, we take a look at the burgeoning menswear market, which is increasing in size, but also sophistication.

MUMBAI, India — We are witnessing a seismic shift in the menswear industry in India today. Indeed, the Indian man has finally come into his own. In a sartorial sense, he knows what he wants, isn’t afraid to experiment, and is willing to spend on the best. He has a deeper appreciation and understanding of quality and enduring style.

The market has responded to his debut with gusto. The arrival of international luxury menswear brands, an ever-increasing choice of men’s glossy magazine titles seeking advertising opportunities, and a growing number of Indian fashion designers that specialise in menswear, is evidence of this.

But the market has also been made more complicated and challenging given the economic downturn. So where do we find the modern Indian male now?

The search isn’t a particularly long one. Just pick up a copy of the current issue of any society or high-end lifestyle publication and you’ll find him on the cover, only too thrilled to invite readers into his home and wardrobe. He is getting younger and younger. ‘Super’ luxury today is enjoyed by young industrialists, entrepreneurs and bankers in their twenties and thirties, who display a passion for acquisitions of the non-business kind—magnificent yachts, private jets, multi-level mansions, a garage-full of bigger and faster cars, and anything customised that allows him the distinction of owning something that is ‘one-of-a-kind’.

While the more brash ‘why not’ attitude of this young Indian man marks a stark contrast to the more low-key approach exercised by his parents, the desire to buy luxury goods in India is nothing new, as personalised luxury is deeply ingrained in the Indian mind-set. For generations, pundits of style and society have celebrated India’s luxury heritage and cultural roots and the most prestigious European luxury houses have associations with India dating over one hundred years.

Personalisation transcends even socio-economic barriers. The owner of the corner sari store still calls upon his ancestral tailor to make his ‘shirt-pants’ and the erstwhile prince purchases his ‘suit lengths’ from the world’s finest fabric makers. But this new modern man wants more. In the contemporary scenario, we are seeing him not only a return to his roots, but also emerge as part of a new sartorial elite—men for whom sourcing the finest fabrics is no longer good enough. Today, they also want their suits hand-crafted by the finest master tailors in Italy or Savile Row.

This new luxury client’s importance cannot be understated for luxury brands looking to enter India, or those who are already here. The market for grooms who planning weddings, in particular, is expanding at about 25 percent per year. There appears to be no end to how lavish a wedding celebration one can orchestrate. In the past year, there have been high-profile Indian nuptials in the Maldives, Phuket, Bali and Mauritius, complete with block bookings of entire airplanes and luxury island accommodation for family and friends.

And while bespoke trousseaux have always been associated with brides, today we are seeing more and more men setting their sights on made-to-measure suits from the finest European brands for their special day. Much in the same way that a young bride consults with her designer of choice over samples of luxuriously embroidered fabric swatches and design sketches, the modern Indian groom has discovered the pleasure of a specialised made-to-measure service.

Sipping on a single malt in a private salon, he can choose from endless options of fabrics, linings, buttons, colours and cuts for a timelessly-designed suit which bears the ultimate badge of bespoke: his name.

It is a thrill unlike any other.

Natasha Malhotra, Head of Communications for Brioni India, was previously Managing Editor of the Indian edition of L’Officiel Paris.

Dries Van Noten, courtesy of IHT

It’s day two of the BoF India Fashion Week and today we turn our attention to Sustainable Luxury, the theme of the most recent IHT Luxury Conference, held this year in India, home of age-old craftsmanship and artisanale traditions.

NEW DELHI, India — “What does an economic collapse and a terrorist attack have to do with sustainable luxury?” Everything, strategist and author Jem Bendell suggested as he addressed the attendees of the International Herald Tribune’s annual conference on Luxury held last week.

The event was re-scheduled from December of last year, due to the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai. The topic for this year’s conference was Sustainable Luxury—a phrase whose meaning has expanded to include more than just corporate social responsibility (CSR). The global economic downturn has precipitated a major shift in both consumer behaviour and expectations, affecting the bottom line of many luxury brands and calling into question the sustainability of the sector itself.

As Suzy Menkes, Fashion Editor of the IHT, noted in her opening address, “these are tough, rough times in the luxury world… and those sensitive to the shifting mood doubt that the 15 years of expansive growth can return in the same heady, crazy way”.

The notion of sustainable luxury today must be defined by more than just how the sector conducts business in relation to its environmental and social impact. It must also consider the ongoing relevance of an industry that for many exemplifies the type of rabid consumption and extravagant spending that, in part, gave rise to the current economic crisis in the first place.

So, gathered together was a group of leading industry professionals with the common goal of imagining what luxury, sustainability and India have to do with each other. François Henri Pinault spoke at length about the efforts PPR has been making to decrease the environmental impact of their businesses, including logistics, transportation and packaging optimization. Gucci’s leather goods and jewellery divisions are SA8000 certified and as CEO, Pinault has linked CSR targets directly to management compensation throughout the PPR organization. Although much of his talk came across like a textbook presentation on CSR, the work being done is commendable and undoubtedly a step in the right direction.

Christian Blanckaert, Executive Vice-President of Hermès International, took the opportunity to declare the end of “pop luxury”. A long-time proponent of signature over brand, Blanckaert asserted that the current economic crisis and resulting adjustment in consumer behaviour would swing the pendulum back towards “deep luxury”—true luxury, which is not fast and has little to do with fashion.

The manufacturing of these kinds of goods requires a high level of quality and craftsmanship which results in long term partnerships with suppliers and workers, encouraging economic sustainability for all those involved. Searching for value, the consumer will continue to spend on products that are perceived as investments. If the steady sales at Hermès for the past three quarters amidst plummeting performances elsewhere in the sector are any indication, other brands would be wise to take note.

Mohan Murjani, Chairman of the Murjani Group, outlined in no uncertain terms the reasons for the recent termination of his Indian franchise agreements with brands such as Gucci and Bottega Veneta. In addition to a massive disparity between initial projections and actual numbers in matters of sales, margins, markdowns and costs, Murjani suggested that the challenges of the Indian consumer were grossly underestimated.

This discussion was the first of many throughout the conference that stressed the highly value-conscious nature of the Indian consumer. Not to be misunderstood for simple price point sensitivity-affluent Indians certainly have the money to spend-but a real evaluation of the quality, craftsmanship and uniqueness of the offering has been the trend with shoppers here. In a country that has been developing embroidery techniques, harvesting gemstones, creating fabrics and inventing dyes for thousands of years, it is hardly a surprise that ‘value’ is held to such high standards.

Charu Sachdev, CEO of TSG International Marketing and Indian franchisee of brands such as Lanvin and Stella McCartney, argued another element was at play, contributing to the purchasing barrier Indians are experiencing when shopping on home turf. Acute poverty, still very much a reality in India is harder to ignore when not in Paris or Dubai. The relationship between potentially excessive consumer behaviour and social responsibility is more likely to come to the forefront of a shopper’s mind when you drive past a slum on your way to a glossy, new luxury shopping complex.

The solution? Building a business model that moves beyond the “no harm” notion of responsibility to that of positive engagement and long-term sustainability will go a long way in re-enforcing the positioning of luxury brands. Luxury brands must make sure their definition of excellence is in line with that of their increasingly conscientious consumers. Designer Dries Van Noten, who spoke of his 20-year relationship with a Kolkata embroidery atelier has the right idea when it comes to building a long-term relationship with the Indian marketplace and providing shoppers incentive to buy.

The difficulties luxury brands have been facing in India typify those that they will face on a global scale as a result of new economic realities and altered consumer expectations. The value proposition of a product will have to satisfy a greater number of discerning, quality-hungry customers looking to make a real investment. The days of disposable luxury are over. In addition, those who are still spending will want to make sure their purchases contribute somehow towards a greater environmental, economic and social sustainability.

Shrinking economies and terrorist attacks only serve to remind us how connected we really are, making sustainability an issue the luxury sector can no longer afford to ignore.

Meeta Roy is a luxury brand consultant based in Paris.

Behind the scenes at Wills India Fashion Week, courtesy of PR Pundit

This week on The Business of Fashion we welcome several guest contributors to give us the scoop on recent fashion weeks, the IHT conference and local market trends in India. We’re calling it our own India Fashion Week, but as you’ll see, that might be the last thing India needs.

NEW DELHI, India — Bollywood, Cricket and Fashion. Everyday these three topics bring to life the popular culture pages of India’s leading national newspapers, The Times of India and Hindustan Times. And of this colourful ménage à trois, fashion is the relative newcomer, but is growing fast.

In the last year alone, the local scene has exploded to include three major prêt-a-porter fashion weeks, a bridal couture week, a regional fashion week in Kolkata, a proposed men’s fashion week and enough corporate sponsors to power each one. Multi-brand fashion boutiques and über-luxe malls featuring international brands have also recently opened. Local fashion media has reached critical mass, with Harper’s Bazaar, which launched an Indian edition last month, Vogue India, and countless other magazines all aimed at India’s it-bag aspiring middle classes.

But, let’s start at the very beginning, to see how it all began.

India’s first ever fashion week took place in New Delhi in the Autumn of 2000, organised by the newly created Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), the international talent agency IMG, and title sponsor Lakmé, a leading Indian cosmetics and beauty brand. This edition ran until the big split in 2006. Since then, Lakmé Fashion Week (LFW) by IMG is held in Mumbai, home of Bollywood and “filmy” glamour, while the FDCI continued as Wills India Fashion Week (WIFW) in New Delhi. Add to this Delhi Fashion Week (DFW), only two seasons old, created by the FDCI’s defecting former executive director.

Which brings us to the Autumn/Winter 2009 shows last month, where over 180 fashion and accessory designers in 80+ runway shows, unveiled their collections across three events in two cities, between March 18 and 31, with a record number of corporate sponsors including Hewlett Packard, Audi, Grey Goose, Carlsberg, Yahoo, Reliance, Kingfisher airlines and Fedex.

As FDCI president Sunil Sethi told The Business of Fashion: “Even in these times of recession there is a definite buzz around brand India and a special place on the rack for us. It is all about continuity.  If a customer has come to us once, whether they add another designer or replace one with the other, they nevertheless carry brand India forward. Let us get the international fashion community here first. Let them see our creativity, our warmth and the hunger we have to be part of the world of fashion.”

But that is easier said than done, and there is a long way to go before this is achieved.

If only these fashion weeks did not shift venue every year, resulting in constant logistical reprogramming between glitzy five-star hotels, a spanking new luxury mall, a drab industry trade venue, and a crumbling performance arts hall, creating an image problem, which never helps in fashion

What’s more, designers are split and often conflicted, especially the younger ones, as to which week they should participate in. On one occasion designers even fought publicly, one accusing the other of delaying his show on purpose.

For media and buyers, the three fashion weeks are no treat either. Media outlets are forced to deploy larger teams to simultaneously cover all events comprehensively. The all-important front row of international buyers, such as Julie Gilhart, fashion director of Barneys New York who attended WIFW last month, must choose between fashion weeks or face the impossible drive across Delhi between venues, in the deadlock of peak traffic hours.

What the Indian fashion community needs to do instead is create a single organisation to interface between designers and related government bodies, retailers, manufacturers and financial institutions. We should aim to make a global imprint with our craft and textile heritage, creativity and colour at global standards of competitiveness; marketing India as a design hub. Indeed, the craft and colour of India has caught the imagination of the world, not just-a-bit helped by the phenomenal success of Slumdog Millionaire.

To outside commentators this is more than apparent. A few days ago bigwig fashion journalist Suzy Menkes wrote in a New York Times article, “As the vast country’s designers take Indian style beyond the draped sari and its woven fabrics to Western cut and sew, a local industry is now doing more than making low-cost clothes for export overseas. [Yet] in spite of a vibrant market across the subcontinent, the rallying cry of those 150-plus designers is this: “Can we make it internationally?”

Manish Arora has made it, with critical acclaim, if not commercial success. Pieces by Rajesh Pratap Singh have been stocked at Colette in Paris. Other designers including Anamika Khanna, Sabyasachi, Ashish N. Soni and Namrata Joshipura, are also making their mark internationally. A couple of other promising up-and-comers including Gaurav Gupta and Varun Sardana are waiting in the wings but need seed investment to take off.

As for the crowded show calendar and multiple fashion weeks, some industry participants think it might be too early to tell whether three really is crowd.  “I think we should reserve judgment for the time being,” says  Nonita Kalra, Editor-in-Chief of ELLE India. “I don’t think the calendar is crowded. Just compare the numbers to the burgeoning middle class. India is a big country with big tastes. What seems like an explosion to the rest of the world is just a small party for us.”

Either way, while the dust has settled a bit this year, the chaos of fashion week in India is not a pretty sight.  That said, the threat of recession has turned quite a lot of people rather more serious in bringing Indian fashion from fraternity to industry, not gang war. And that can only do us some good.

Sita Wadhwani is a writer, fashion stylist and trend scout based between New Delhi and Mumbai.

Priya Kishore, a beacon for Bombay's new creative elite, courtesy of Bombay Electric

NEW DELHI, India – When Priya Kishore and Bombay Electric hit Mumbai a few years ago, Mumbaikars didn’t know what was coming. No sooner had Kishore arrived than she became a beacon for Bombay’s new creative elite – one with a rightful place on the world stage.

A friend while she lived in London, Priya always had this wonderful creative streak, dressed in quirky clothes and popping colours. No wonder Mumbai has taken to her so well – she shares her love for colour with many of the denizens of India’s most populous city.

Of course, all hasn’t been rosy of late. With a terrorist siege that lasted well over three day, Indians have been in the streets, exercising their rights, in this, the largest democracy in the world.

But life goes on. Priya just opened Pocket Electric, India’s first pop-up store in New Delhi. Could she be testing the grounds for a Delhi invasion? We reached her there to find out more in our latest CEO Talk, a BoF Exclusive.

BoF: Why did you set up Bombay Electric in the first place?

When Bombay Electric was conceived, there were only a handful of luxury brands in India, and the domestic fashion market revolved around wedding wear.

Three and a half years ago, the market for ready-to-wear was nascent at best, non-existent at worst, and it was virtually unheard of to base a store’s selection on design alone. It seemed obvious to us that Mumbai needed a veritable design-focused platform to represent the emerging designer talent in this country, as well as offer our discerning clients international brands with a focus on design over label.

Bombay Electric was the first store to offer a curated, tightly merchandised environment in India. I had expected a good reception from Mumbai, but was delighted at the overwhelming response, and fast spreading word-of-mouth. We now have a cult following amongst our clients and Bombay Electric is a brand people are emotionally attached to.

Last week a client wrote in our visitor’s book “I found myself in this store”.

BoF: What is the product and brand mix in your store? How does this differ from what is on offer elsewhere?

Bombay Electric carries established Indian designers such as Manish Arora and Rajesh Pratap Singh, but is also well known as the first to spot rising new talent. Our international brands are cherry picked for their focus on design, and include Comme des Garcons, Pauric Sweeney, Surface 2 Air, and United Nude.

We aim to carry clothes that you can wear anywhere in the world, which means that you will find very little fully traditional or conventional Indian clothing. By amalgamating tradition and modernity, we encourage designers to develop special collections for us. I have developed close relationships with designers and I often encourage them to base a collection for us around a single concept, colour or texture.

BoF: Bombay Electric is right around the corner from the Taj Mahal hotel, site of a long siege during the recent Mumbai attacks. How has been business been since then and what do you think this means for the future of luxury in India?

We opened the Monday after the attacks as a symbolic gesture, but were delighted that many clients, supporters and friends visited and shopped. Thankfully business is back to normal now – it is hard to crush the spirit of Mumbai.

The luxury industry has taken a temporary slowdown, but at the end of the day, you can’t argue with sheer population numbers (1% of 1 Billion) and the growing spending power of its emerging middle and upper middle class.

The demand is still there, and although the speed of growth has been slowed, the growth itself has not. The potential of the luxury industry in India is huge; something that the IHT has recognised by deciding to host their luxury conference in India.

BoF: And, what about the impact of the global economic crisis?

We have not noticed a drop in sales during the economic crisis – what I have noticed, though, is an almost overnight change in Indian consumer tastes.

The Indian consumer remains very discerning, even our wealthiest clients consider their choices greatly. They do not think as western consumers, nor do they have similar tastes – recognizing this is the key to success for luxury brands in India.

BoF: New luxury malls are popping up in India, including DLF Emporio in Delhi, attempting to bring Luxury brands together in one place as is found in other markets. Do you think these malls have a real future in India, or could street shopping districts actually emerge?

Whilst the mid-market malls are perennially packed full of middle class shoppers, luxury malls such as Emporio are virtually empty every time I visit.

During the 5 days of Delhi fashion week that I spent at Emporio I only saw two people with shopping bags. I have had similar experiences at UB City in Bangalore. It is too soon to say whether the luxury malls will be a success or not, but it is clear that shopping is a core leisure activity. What the Indian malls need to do is realize this, and perhaps look to the experience-focused marketing strategies of Dubai Malls for inspiration. Luxury malls must be a destination in themselves – I have not seen this happen in India yet.

The high street is a more intuitively Indian concept, integrating preferences for local services, but the true dilemma lies in availability of good real estate which is virtually nonexistent in Indian metros, especially Mumbai. We were very lucky to find our standalone heritage building on what is now known as ‘the Bond Street of Bombay’, but spaces like ours are now virtually impossible to come by.

BoF: Now that you have established a bonafide business, what can we expect from Bombay Electric in the months and years to come?

Our latest news is the opening of Pocket Electric– India’s first guerrilla store. We’ve taken occupation of a space at the Garden of Five Senses in New Delhi, and I’m quite excited about the result. We see Pocket Electric as Bombay Electric’s rebellious kid sister – an espresso shot of the best of the flagship’s collections, but with a distinctly new edge from our new collaborations, most notably with Bharat Sikka, one of India’s most progressive photographers.

A temporal space allows you more creative freedom, and permits you to suspend your client’s belief as they walk in through the door – or rather window, as is the case for Pocket Electric. The store soundtrack features unreleased tracks from Talvin Singh, who is also set to perform at our official launch party, and the walls are adorned with Bharat Sikka’s otherworldly visions of Delhi.

CEO Talk is an ongoing series of discussions with fashion entrepreneurs and business leaders as they combat the economic downturn. Previous interviews are listed below:

• Natalie Massenet, Chairman and Founder, Net-a-Porter
• Camilla Skovgaard, Shoe designer and Entrepreneur
• Susan Lyne, Chief Executive Officer, Gilt Groupe
• Priya Kishore, Founder and Creative Director, Bombay Electric
• Alex Bolen, Chief Executive Officer, Oscar de la Renta

LONDON, United Kingdom and MUMBAI, India – Over dinner at Milan Fashion Week last February, I got to talking to Bandana Tewari, Fashion Features Director of Vogue India, about the renewed energy in London fashion. Naturally, her first question was what Indian designers were doing to contribute to the London scene, particularly as India continues to emerge for a centre for world-class design.

The result of our conversation is this Vogue India article on Indian designers based in London. While writing the piece, I got to know three Indian designers with three amazing stories, each of which started in India and subsequently took them all over the world, until they finally ended up in London.

Between them, Ashish Gupta, Saloni Lodha and Aseef Vaza have lived and worked in Toronto, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Florence, Paris and New York — bringing quintessentially cosmopolitan energy to London’s design and fashion community.