Women's branded garments pip menswear

Mumbai: Women’s branded garments are expanding the size of the Indian textile and apparel market, and also edging out the menswear which has hitherto led the markets.

Manohar Samuel, president, marketing and business development, Birla Cellulose, says the total textile market size in 2014 was $108 billion. Of this, the domestic consumption was about $68 billion with apparels accounting for $50 billion.

Earlier, 39 per cent each of this $68-billion domestic consumption was going to women’s and menswear and 22 per cent to kidswear. But with the influx of branded apparels, the women’s wear market has been growing at 10 per cent. So, by 2018, women’s branded apparel  will capture 41 per cent of the $68 billion domestic textile market, and menswear will have 38 per cent.

Monte Carlo’s executive director Sandeep Jain also says that they were gearing up to meet the demand for women’s fashions, which grew by over 30 per cent this summer while men’s fashions grew just 20 per cent. Change in women’s wear has also to do with the aspirations of the Indian women with growing economic independence, to buy fashionable clothing.

Mr Samuel’s Birla Cellulose has a unique tieup with 51 top women’s wear brands like Van Husen, Global Desi, who use their fabric Liva. According to him, “There is so much appetite for fashion that earlier like the rest of the world we had only four seasons — spring, summer, autumn and winter. Now there are six collections in one year and designs are changed almost every two weeks. We get new trends 14 months ahead of the season. Leggings are growing at 28 per cent a year.”

International brands too are cashing in on the growing branded fashion market and have forayed into the western wear market. Brands like Zara, the largest brand in the world,  H&M, and Marks & Spencer are doing extremely well with their new merchandise and fashion garments in the Indian retail space. Early entrants like Levi’s, Adidas, UCB, Vero Moda are also doing extremely well in the country.