Style at work

Hotels and resorts like the Taj, Oberoi, ITC group, Shangri-la and Claridges in India, as also big names like Ritz Carlton and Marriott in the US, have flagged off a new business for high-end furnishing stores "" contract furnishing.

But contract furnishing, today, is not limited to the hospitality sector alone. It now services everyone from the IT industry (with some like Infosys dolling up its corporate offices and on-campus hotels with the latest upmarket furnishing products), to premium real-estate developers looking to create luxury condominiums.

Mandeep Singh Wadhwa, managing director of Seasons Furnishings, a group company of Seasons Textile, lists corporate furnishings as the next big thing for organised furnishings players. The group, which has worked on Palace on Wheels, will be also be providing decor elements like rugs, carpets and cushions, at the upcoming Infosys campus in Mysore.

"With our plans to reach Rs 80 crore turnover by the end of this year, and go on to the Rs 150-crore mark by 2008, we expect a larger share from our contract furnishings arm, where we are witnessing an increase in the average contract size," he adds.

Seasons Textile, which has an installed production capacity of over 2.4 million metres per year in Noida, will be setting up a second plant in Sonepat at an investment of Rs 70 crore.

"With the second plant, the company hopes to double its production capacity by 2008," says Wadhwa. Exports to the US, UK, Italy, Singapore, Australia and the Middle East account for 70 per cent of Season's total production currently.

Seasons, which has three high-end stores in Delhi, Gurgaon and Mumbai, is planning to open shop in cities like Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad, investing a little over Rs 50 lakh a store. "We will be adding upto 25 franchisees and several shop-in-shop counters across the country."

Seasons retails fabrics priced at Rs 1,000-Rs 25,000 a metre, which clearly has no takers among the mass-retail segment, where players like Pantaloons, Welspun and Portico abound. "That is why while retailing at franchisees, we intend to showcase products in the Rs 1,000-Rs 2,500 range."

The Club Class, Season's high-end retail arm, also houses premium international brands like Fabricut from the US, Jero from Paris, Saum & Viebahn from Germany, Warwick from the UK and Castella-Beltrami from South Africa.