Our motto is to make premium fashion accessible to everyone
Harbour 9 is an Indian clothing brand that focuses on manufacturing high-quality, attractive, and comfortable everyday wear for men and women. As an ethically compliant brand, the company aims to reduce the negative impact on people, animals, and the planet. Its clothes are manufactured completely in India, from the sourcing of the materials to the final output. In an interview with Fibre2Fashion, Harbour 9 Director Manoj Jain talks about sustainability and challenges in India.
What is Harbour 9's fashion philosophy? Where did the name come from?
Our fashion philosophy is ‘never compromise’. One doesn’t have to give up comfort for style or vice versa for which we have introduced a range of comfortable, in-trend, casual wear for the complete family at affordable prices. Our collection is inspired by the idea of the perfect tropical getaway at various scenic holiday spots. We’re also deeply inspired by the hues of the sea and sky, hence the name.
What makes Harbour 9 stand apart?
Our ability to create comfortable yet stylish clothes made of premium materials and available at unbeatable prices. Not stopping just at that, we strive to make society a better place to be and free it from the clutches of fast fashion and its infamous manufacturing practices. Fast fashion—which significantly remains unbranded in India—is subject to child labour, animal cruelty, etc and many more wrongdoings. At Harbour 9, we ensure that our employees are valued all the time with our strong policies promoting their welfare, well-being, and emotional upliftment through employee engagement activities.
Our most recent development (of launching a sustainable line of apparel) catapults us as one of the pioneers in bringing sustainable fashion to India. Given the negative impact of fast fashion’s waste that is only burdening the landfills and increasing the overall carbon emissions, we believe in recycling waste clothes and using the yarn paired with naturally sourced dyes to make fashionable in-trend clothes. We are also recycling wasted PET bottles by collecting them from the oceans and using the microfibres from them to produce new-age clothes. Furthermore, our deeply rooted belief in inclusion has led us to unveil our sustainably fashionable line of apparel in plus size too.
How has the brand evolved over the years?
We began operations of Harbour 9 when the pandemic gravely impacted the global economy. Though starting modestly with only men’s range of clothing, our stocks were almost sold within a couple of months. We realised that irrespective of the pandemic and the locked down lifestyle, people want fashionably comfortable clothes. Our robust supply chain throughout the pandemic helped us to keep increasing our customers which led to many requesting us to expand and cater to the complete family with diverse and unique products. Within a year’s time, we expanded to be recognised as a full-fledged family shopping destination. To revolutionise the apparel industry in India and overseas, we stepped into a sustainable clothing line, which is being well-received by our loyal customer base. We are looking at further aspects to cater to the diverse audience, while supporting the environment’s welfare by reducing wastage and subsequent carbon emissions.
Which are your best performing categories in menswear, womenswear, and kidswear?
oMenswear – Polo and athleisure wear
oWomenswear – T-shirts and tops
oKidswear – T-shirts
Which are your major markets in India?
We have been well received in the metro cities and tier 2 cities across India. Given that our marketing and sales presence is majorly online, our key focus remains the digitally active markets. Prudent in our approach, we are willing to penetrate further into the evolving markets within the country which are slowly getting seamless digitisation services along with a robust logistics network.
What is your penetration like in tier 3 towns?
We have been able to reach these audiences and cater to their need of keeping up with the trends and offered prices which have been a viable option for them too. Given our motto to make premium fashion accessible to everyone, we are strategizing lucrative ways and partnerships for sustainable business practices while catering to far-off remote locations.
What are some of the challenges that D2C brands in India are facing at the moment?
The key challenge with dealing in the D2C channel is that not every day is the same and the business enters waters that have not been tested before. It is all driven by what is in trend. If you try to promote a jacket inspired by a pop artist from the ’90s, maybe you bag a couple of interested buyers, but your brand’s newsletter may likely also be unsubscribed by a couple of 100 users who may cite ‘irrelevant content’ as the reason for their action. Keeping up with understanding the diverse need of each consumer and then catering to them with personalised marketing content requires a large amount of pre-collected data to be processed.
The D2C business market to-date remains unorganised with majorly all types of brands available on e- marketplaces. Lack of governance for quality assurance and no enforcement taken against hoax brands on these channels boils down to the butterfly effect wherein even the genuine brands are not trusted by consumers in this space.
Also, given that the online space is equally vast, and it can be tricky for businesses to understand where their target audience is, the business viability can often come into question due to lean growth over longer durations during the initial days of online business.
D2C brands furthermore face heavy losses with the return policy extended to the consumers. Given the logistical costs to be borne by the brands, receiving massive return requests can pummel a brand’s margins significantly.
What kind of government support can help overcome these challenges?
Regulations and advisories from the government to e-marketplaces to uphold best business practices will address many challenges faced by standalone quality products providing brands. As consumers are increasingly becoming conscious about the environment, more brands are emerging to bring out products that do not cause any harm to the environment. Given the main cause for this is to arrest climate change, the government needs to make efforts to spread awareness about climate change and how sustainability can be glamorous as well. Stricter control over waste management from fashion industries will curb fast fashion’s negative impact on society, pave way for the organised sector to thrive, and enable genuine brands to emerge to the fore.
What are the future plans at Harbour 9? What new product categories do you plan to add?
With the sustainable line of apparel just being introduced, we would keep focusing on expanding the range with new designs and newer recycled material sources to produce fashionable and eco-friendly products for all. We aim to become a 100 per cent sustainable brand, which we realise is a work in progress and will take some time to normalise by informing and building a community of like-minded people. Though a challenge at hand, we are ready to pursue the quest.
Published on: 10/10/2022
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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