The 100-Crore club is not something new to Fashion. But with the number of designers who get added to it every year is indeed something new. Quite a lot of designers have found their way into the 100 Crore club recently and when a lot of them are Indian Designers, it is something for all of us Indians to be proud off.
These designers have managed to carve out a special place for themselves with their unique styling and brands. Take for example Anita Dongre, the Mumbai based designer whose top-line crosses the 300-Crore mark in 2013-14.
You’d expect designers to talk figure rather than figures but that’s quickly changing as the Indian fashion industry joins the Rs 100-crore club a la Bollywood.
Anita Dongre, the Mumbai-based designer who has three labels — AND, Global Desi and an eponymous one — is clearly the Rohit Shetty of the fashion biz, notching up revenues of over Rs 300 crore in 2013-14.
Others who’ve made the cut include two labels that are just a decade old — Sabyasachi Mukherjee (Rs 109 crore) and Manish Malhotra (Rs 108 crore). So it’s no surprise that after years of viewing fashion as too fickle, private-equity players are increasingly turning their attention to fashion designers. Private equity firm Everstone Capital recently invested Rs 100 crore in Ritu Kumar for an undisclosed minority stake. A veteran in the fashion world, Kumar hit the Rs 100-crore sales mark a while ago.
One of the first Indian designer labels to receive private equity funding was the Satya Paul brand. Today, it has 30 exclusive boutiques and more than 100 points of sale across India. So how are small family-run boutique businesses turning themselves into corporate success stories? Managing director Sanjay Kapoor puts it down to global influences. “Until a few years ago, most designers ran boutique shops. Now, with the exposure to international brands, Indian designers too have started understanding the nuances of running a business.” One of the roadblocks to serious returns has been the lack of scale, says Kapoor. But according to Sandeep Naik, India head of General Atlantic, a global growth investment firm that picked up a minority stake in AND Designs, that’s set to change.
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