Wall-owing in colours

Money can't buy you love, but it can buy you wall paint that's used by the likes of Hrithik Roshan and Sushmita Sen.

The paint mimics marble and granite stones, behaves like velvet and can even create a three-dimensional psychedelic feel for your room. What's more, you can even wash your wall with sudsy water.

Oikos India, a JV between Oikos, an Italian decorative paint company and Mumbai-based Corob Ltd, wants to capture a slice of the Rs 250-crore branded wall paints market by introducing top-of-the line interior and exterior wall paints to Indian consumers.

Corob Ltd manufactures paint dispensing machinery in Daman and Oikos, Italy, boasts of a presence in 58 countries.

The special wall paints are marketed differently "" there are no paint boxes, brushes and shade cards to show customers visiting the shop.

"At our Deco Centres, we only introduce our customers to colourful walls. We let our customers experience colour," says Pragati Gupta, director, Oikos India.

Touted as an "art gallery", the Deco Centre displays its five special effects paints on the shop walls.

Among its products is Ottocento that looks and feels like velvet, Decor Sil, that's an exterior paint with siloxanic properties or resins that allows vapour to escape from the wall.

Its Mother of Pearl range is a home interior brand which can be washed with soap and water to delete stains.

Its Super Colour range has a flat matte finish while its stucco range looks as good as granite. The Multi Decor range, backed with computer tinting, has over 550 colours to choose from.

At between Rs 50 and Rs 150 per sq ft (wall repair, scraping and primer costs extra), the wall paints don't come cheap.

But there is clearly no shortage of takers. Oikos has also done up ad agency Grey's office, the Phoenix Mills and Unitech buildings, among others. And the company is taking challenges in its stride.

"For Provogue Lounge, which is a shop by day and a bar by night, we had to use a combination which looks bright by day and warm under lighting by night," says Gupta. Similarly, the exterior of Chiragh Din building in Mumbai, was painted a dazzling orange.

Currently, the company has Deco Centres at Mumbai's Khar and Warden House in Fort and at Delhi's 1 MG Road.

Next month, it proposes to open three more Deco Centres in Mumbai's Ghatpokar, Vashi and Lower Parel area. Its 8,000-sq ft Lower Parel centre will be its flagship showroom.

In an innovative effort to promote its special effects wall paints, the company is also setting up Oikos Corners.

These are small dedicated wall spaces the company rents out in upmarket retail stores like The Courtyard and CP Tank in Mumbai, to display what kind of walls can be done with Oikos paints. It proposes to open 300 Deco Corners within three years.

According to company officials, half the trick of these paints lies in their application. Oikos India is also setting up centres to train people on how to apply the paint with special implements.

Oikos India has entered into a technical collaboration with Oikos Italy to manufacture the special paints in Daman.