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FASHION: Buying house major Pradeep Hirani is now going to retail luxury pret from Europe in India.

The reason Pradeep Hirani is flushed pink isn't because he's wearing a pink shirt "" we'll excuse him that metrosexual indulgence "" but because he's suddenly grown his business hand over fist. And it's landed him slam dunk in the international fashion sorority.

Last month, Hirani was invited as India's first full-fledged buyer to the London and Milan fashion weeks in his capacity as "a dominant buyer in the Indian market".

What's more, Hirani says that the coming season's spring/summer collection is geared "towards India rather than to Russia", which has been a major emerging market for international fashion these last years.

Just three-and-a-half-years old in the business, Hirani heads fashion houses Kimaya and Ayamik with stores in Delhi, Mumbai and Dubai and a track-record of 112 per cent growth in the last couple of years.

The fashion boutiques sell designer couture and diffusion lines, and include some of the best Indian designer labels under their elegant roofs. But what's got Hirani excited isn't just his expansion plans (about which more later), but the transition from being a retail house of Indian designers to representing and retailing popular European designers in India and the Middle East. "The osmosis is happening," he exults.

Wooed in style "" Hirani and his team of eight merchandisers were feted, entertained, provided premium seating "" the buying house found it refreshing to have international designers not only cut their prices drastically for the Indian market, but also offer to tweak silhouettes and sizes for it.

The first deliveries will begin in March 2007, and Hirani is hoping to have a new brand of stores by then. Certainly, the European designers will not retail from either Kimaya or Ayamik.

"They will be new spaces, new stores, and we will start with their diffusion lines," he sighs in satisfaction. "The stores in all probability will be larger than their Indian counterparts because of "the larger volumes of business in which international designers trade."

The absence of high streets in India is a major issue, but in Mumbai Hirani has a nine-storey building on Linking Road which it will use for its expansion, and has also booked space in a luxury mall in Delhi. "In addition, we've booked two more locations in Dubai that will be ready in 2009 and 2010 respectively."

Expansions in the Middle East will include Kuwait and Qatar, and in India almost inevitably Ludhiana, Chandigarh and Jaipur to begin with and, some time later, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

The huge interest in the Indian market comes from its buying power. "The growth for European designers is coming from only four countries "" Brazil, Russia, India and China." And everywhere you go, Hirani insists, "India is rocking!" As for the future of fashion? "Their silhouettes," he says of European designers, "and our workmanship "" that would be a heady cocktail."

How Hirani's experimentation works could impact the way international fashion houses will look at India, and since they aren't interested in tying up with mere cash-rich companies, demanding fashion retail experience, its feasible that at some point fashion stores like Ensemble and Samsaara could enter the fray.

But Hirani isn't worried about competition "" he's already got other plans under that pink sleeve. "In 2008," he says, we will get into designer homes. That will be the next big wave."

And not furnishings but complete homes so that, as internationally, you could go to a developer and say, "I want look number one, or two, or three...". That look will be dictated by Hirani's designer homes label. Watch this space for names.