Bespoke apparel market poised to grow exponentially; old school (but exclusive) tailoring is back!
The bespoke shirts and trousers market in the country may still be small, but has the potential to grow exponentially over the next few years with young upwardly mobile people (25-40 years old) wanting a more personalized experience. Consider these top-end brands- Belissimo (meaning beautiful, in Italian), Brunito and Camessi. These brands are fighting it out to carve a niche in the exclusive fashion segment, amongst the rich and the famous.
They expect this market to double over the next few year.Belissimo and Brunito are from Kolkata-based Ramgopal Rajpuria, the octogenarian boutique shirt-maker. Camessi, is an arm of Spell Fashion Pvt Ltd that has the same promoters as BSE-listed Reliance Chemotex. Both the brands are now eyeing the pan India market. Read On...
Rajpuria has stitched uniquely designed shirts (under the brand-Brunito) for cricketing legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Brett Lee and some top business honchos like S K Burman of Dabur, Shiv Jatia of Hyatt Group, Sanjiv Goenka of RP Sanjiv Goenka Group, his father R P Goenka, top brass of McDonald’s India, KFC India, Usha Martin, Emami, Simplex, to name a few. He says, "A premium tailoring segment has arisen for cotton shirts dubbed as ‘bespoke’, or luxury, segment. We have been leveraging this premium bespoke segment. We have our own tailoring unit for high end cotton shirts that cater to the requirements of fashion-conscious, niche sections of the society, and ensure that the tailored cotton shirts suit the customer’s personality and social status, and occasion."
Belissimo’s target market is the young fashionable buyer and the shirts are mainly evening wear/party wear, with a huge range of colours, designs and styles. The shirts are specially hand designed and each design is unique in styling making them exclusive.
Interestingly, Camessi is driven by the same philosophy. "It is said that the man and his clothes are cut from the same cloth. At Camessi, we bring that saying to life. Our philosophy is simple: we believe clothes are an extension of the wearer’s personality and we strive to bring to light the finer aspects of that personality in our products. Our goal is to create the perfect ensemble for the discerning urban man," says Sanjiv Shroff, director at Camessi.
He adds, "We were originally in a market that was catered to by our local darzis (tailors). We then went on to become a mass produced ready-to-wear market. With customers now becoming more discerning and wanting their shirts and trousers to fit as per their individual requirements, the potential for growth in this bespoke sector looks promising. People now want a more personalized experience and we expect this market to double over the next few years. Old school is now back."
The high expectations of these brands are not without justifications. The cotton wear market is not only big but traditionally very strong across India. Though blends/mixtures in yarn have been a trend for a long time, yet that has not been able to disturb the traditional market. It is a very big market and the fashion conscious are now becoming loyal customers of cotton shirts/trousers. Loyalty to cotton wear has been and will be a key to the survival and rapid growth of this sector.
Rajpuria claims to be the sole exclusive shirt maker in India who imports his textiles from Italy and his thread from Germany and machines from Germany. A unit of 50 tailors have been exclusively working since 2001 at his Behala factory, which itself is a heritage structure of famous Rays’ of Behala. Annually, 13000 shirts are made by him. His shop has 2500 readymade shirts with 500 shirts in each size ready at his exclusive store in Alipore.
When it comes to Camessi, it has built a loyal and high-end customer base across India and the world, including India’s top industrialists, lawyers, Bollywood actors, who have a passion for excellent quality and fit. Nearly 98 per cent of its customers are repeat customers. A Camessi bespoke shirt is the sum effort of best quality natural fabrics in cottons, silks and blends from Italy and Switzerland. The client gets to choose from over 1,500 fabric swatches and a similar number of design samples which are updated every quarter. Shirts are customized through an endless array of collars, cuffs and fits, and hand-embroidered monogramming, says Shroff. 
It makes only 2500 shirts and 30 trousers per month and have no intention of increasing this number substantially, because the whole idea is to remain a niche manufacturer of extremely high quality products. While the price range for Belissimo is Rs1800- Rs 9000 per shirt, Camisso shirts are priced from Rs 6,500 to Rs 52000 and the Camisso trousers are priced from Rs12000 to Rs.85,000.
If Rajpuria of Belissimo and Brunito are to be believed, these bespoke players will always have a unique positioning without competition in their category of shirts. Exclusivity of designs, colours and stitching will help create its own space. And the clientele will always be niche upwardly mobile classy young generation.
- Debhota Mukherjee (TradeBriefs Bureau) -