Sunil Sethi: Whatever happened to Brand India?

AL FRESCO

Shopping for some regular working shirts the other day I found that there were very few labels on the market that suggested an Indian product.

From Van Heusen and Excalibur to Peter England and Allen Solly, most of the ready-to-wear brands had foreign names though they were all made in India. In fact some of the labels, long discarded in the west, have resurfaced to find new customers in India.

At the upper end of the market, flourishing western brands, from Tommy Hilfiger to Hugo Boss, are making their presence felt. Why is it that Indian companies need a foreign label to sell an Indian product?

Partly it is a hangover from decades of a closed economy when the "craze-for-foreign" mania persisted in all its evil manifestations, from yuppies crashing diplomatic receptions in search of Scotch whisky to a pair of Levi's being regarded as the ultimate fashion statement on campuses.

But the real truth is that Brand India has failed to acquire the money or muscle power to make its presence felt in world markets.

One of the world's biggest fashion bazaars, the fashion week in Milan, has just ended.

India's sole candidate this year was Kolkata's wunderkind Sabyasachi Mukherjee, who's made a big splash on the fashion circuit at home. But an ill wind blew Sabyasachi's chances abroad.

As luck would have it, many of the top Italian designers""Giorgio Armani, Roberto Cavalli, and Rocco Barrocco""showed collections inspired by India and Bollywood fantasy, against backdrops of pink elephants, neon Taj Mahals and so on.

The talented and articulate young lad from India didn't get a decent look-in for his authentic Indian rags. The question is, would Sabyasachi have stood a chance even if India wasn't the presiding flavour on the crowded catwalks of Milan (200 shows in eight days)?

The answer is no. Like most of India's home-grown fashion designers he hasn't the production capacity, backed by the necessary industrial and corporate power, to become a brand name.

Brand India, even in statements of style, remains a monopoly of brand dictators of the west. They choose the labels for their own markets. And dump their hand-me-downs on India.

If Indian garments do make it to the high-end fashion retail outlets of the west (and millions do each year) it is always under foreign labels. Indian consumer goods can't get there as stand-alone brands.

India is synonymous with cheap labour, cheap manufacturing and cheaper real estate""in short cheaper overheads. Undiluted India remains a culture shock in western markets.

Asked why she married an Eng. Lit. classic to Bollywood style, the director of Bride and Prejudice, Gurinder Chadha, told a British interviewer last week: "I was looking for a good story, something familiar [to the west], so that people [in Britain] wouldn't get freaked out with all that Bollywood stuff."

In all interviews the film-maker has repeatedly stressed that she set out to make a British film, not a Bollywood film, for the international market. Hardcore Bollywood would be simply indigestible.

In the run-up to Milan Fashion Week, an American magazine conducted a poll among its readers asking if they wanted to visit Italy and if so why.

Seventy-seven per cent said yes because Italy was so "stylish". Italian fashion, Italian food and wine, and Italian films were judged as the three main constituents of style. Together they made up a broad consciousness of Brand Italy.

Doubtlessly Indian food, films and fashion also have their adherents in the international marketplace. But in matters of excellent taste, they remain a niche flavour and an acquired taste. They collectively fail to add up as Brand India.

The Indian effort itself is sporadic, inconsistent and often at loggerheads with itself. There is too much government control in all the wrong places""foreign investment, airlines and tourism, foreign promotions.

The state acts as proprietor, not facilitator. Private industry has grown rapidly since reforms began in growth areas like IT and outsourcing, but still lacks the imaginative leap required to create major international brands.

Instead, we remain enslaved to notions of foreign luxury as the ultimate in symbols of style. The latest to hit Indian shores is the Maybach, the Rs 5-crore car from Daimler, customised for Indian billionares.

A paan masala tycoon is the proud owner of the first Maybach. Surely his achievement would have been greater if he turned paan masala into an international brand while the rest of India is getting accustomed to Peter England shirts?