A new chapter in couture

Sajjid Khan, the owner of the Rs 25-crore garment export house Saks India, develops designs and supplies garments to leading international design houses like Giorgio Armani, Christian Dior, Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and GianFranco Ferre.

Joseph Sam, on the other hand, is a fashion industry expert and the former CEO of Rohit Bal Designs Pvt Ltd who helped Bal become a corporate design house rather than just a fashion label. Khan and Sam have now come together to invest around Rs 5 crore in a new venture called Saks Clothing (P) Ltd.

Saks Clothing will move into corporatising the couture business. The company will focus on three distinct areas of the fashion and lifestyle sectors "" manage designer labels, promote a chain of fashion stores under the Maya brand name and lastly, manage celebrity endorsements for the lifestyle sector.

For starters, the company has roped in fashion designers Manish Malhotra and Shahab Durazi and will manage their labels, informs Khan.

"We'll also bring in other designers in future. In the next five years or so we hope to become India's No 1 fashion house."

While Malhotra will produce wedding, couture and pret lines for Saks Clothing, Durazi will focus on couture and diffusion. "We are looking at investing in designers in the areas of brand management and retail. We'll also manage the back-end operations," explains Sam.

The aim is to create mass brands in apparels and then diversify into accessories and interiors. What it means is that the business side of Malhotra and Durazi's design ventures will be taken care of by Saks Clothing in the future.

R S Roy, managing editor, Images, a leading magazine on fashion retailing says that the trend of export houses moving into domestic retailing is not new.

"Most Indian brands have been created by export houses. They have a better understanding of the supply chain," he explains.

According to him over the years the Indian garment industry has produced tailors and not brands. This is slowly changing. What is adding fillip to this move to create more Indian brands is the opening up of retail space via malls .

Saks Clothing also wants a pie of the celebrity endorsement business. Talks are at the final stages with a leading Bollywood actor and one of India's greatest cricketers. "We are looking at a convergence of the fashion and entertainment sectors," says Sam.

"We will manufacture, market and retail a range of merchandise related to films and sports. The stars we have in mind will endorse these products. Most likely we will have a revenue sharing model between us and the stars."

The third prong in Saks Clothing's strategy is the evolution of Maya. Currently, Maya is a brand under which a number of designers retail. Saks Clothing will now start a retail chain and the promoters are hopeful that by the year-end there will be two Maya stores in Mumbai, one in Delhi and one in Bangkok.

"But more than a brand or a store we see Maya as a nursery for young designers. We've started with two of the big names but that is just to establish the business. The plan is to nurture young designers," says Khan.

Saks Clothing promoters are hopeful that they will be able to provide affordable fashion (at Rs 1,000 plus) to the growing tribe of fashionistas.

And market figures support their optimism. The total clothing industry in India is pegged at around Rs 68,000 crore of which the Indian designers contribute a minuscule Rs 150 crore to Rs 200 crore.

However, the ready-to-wear segment accounts for Rs 40,000 crore. Saks Clothing will have to chart a middle pret path to make a killing.