Top honchos get together at IFF to chart fashion road map

At the Inaugural session of IFF 2014, key leaders of the fashion and retail industry Mr. Rakesh Biyani, Chairman and Jt. MD Future Retail, Mr. Kulin Lalbhai, Executive Director, Arvind , Designer Ms. Ritu Kumar and Mr. Premkumar Gera, Director General, NIFT were seen discussing  the importance of Nurturing the Eco System of the Fashion in India.

The session was anchored by Mr. Arvind Singal, Chaiman Technopak and the key note to the session was given by Mr. Ram Sareen, International Specialist and consultant

Mr. Rakesh Biyani, Chairman and Jt. MD Future Retail was more optimistic in his views and mentioned “If you look at the numbers of online fashion, I think it’s time that more departmental stores open up. You see a lot of regional players opening new stores.

One is value fashion model to which there is a lot of potential and is a large emerging market. The other emerging market is the outlet business like megamart that sells at an alternative price. Online will be larger than all of this. With the regional players not coming to the cities, we need to open doors in the far locations of the country.

Mr. Kulin Lalbhai, Executive Director, Arvind said that the Innovation, Integration and Investment is not closely looked at in the textile space however, the product is at the heart of the textile values chain.  He further commented that at Arvind, we closely look at products as the cost of experimenting is very high. Manufacturers and retailers have to work closely to bring product innovation into the heart of what we do. Retail is about giving the customer what he wants and where he wants.

The cost of inefficiency of supply chain is higher than the product. Only when we truly integrate, we can give the customer what he wants. The Garment segment in India is subscale. The biggest issue is supply chain and on the investment side it is lack of imagination. We can fix innovation and integration and ensure to be there where the next best thing in India Textile.

Designer Ms. Ritu Kumar looked back to the years when she was studying expressed and her views about Indian and International fashion and how it has been evolving over a period of years. 

According to her, “In India so many things exist at so many different levels. Look at European fashion history, in 60’s a lot of talent was emerging. In 60’s when I studied my work there was a law of no importing zips and buttons. It took 40 years for Europe to become such a huge market, while we were just scratching the surface.

"You will not find anywhere in the world other than in India where you will find a parallel design future. In India for women we have western wardrobe, a wardrobe which fits their culture. In India we dress, in rest of the world people dress minimal and for them it’s more fashionable. In india its completely reverse.