We are committed to creating great fashion at the best price in a sustainable way
In the year 2015, AND Designs India Limited re-branded itself as House of Anita Dongre, which stands for a simple, unembellished thought—to create beautiful tomorrows for the planet and its people. The House of Anita Dongre currently shelters AND (westernwear), Global Desi (boho-chic brand inspired by the folk tales of India), and her signature label ANITA DONGRE. In an interview with Fibre2Fashion, House of Anita Dongre MD & CEO Kavindra Mishra discusses women’s westernwear market in India and the company’s sustainability pledge.
How has the women’s westernwear market evolved in the last decade?
Fashion landscape has changed dramatically in the past decade. With penetration of internet, consumer choices and buying behaviour keeps evolving by leaps and bounds in urban markets. Founded in 1995, AND stemmed out of the realisation that the modern Indian woman did not have too many contemporary silhouettes to choose from at the time. Striving to bridge this gap ever since, AND has garnered the recognition of a brand that makes global styles for the contemporary woman, understanding the sensibilities of fashion, comfort, quality, and style effortlessly. While a decade back, sale of westernwear was mostly in metro and tier 1 cities, now it is sold across the length and breadth of the country as well as across various tiers.
What is AND’s share in the Indian women’s westernwear market?
It is very difficult to determine the market share as proper data is not available. However, AND is the No. 1 westernwear brand in key department stores like Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle where it shares retail space with other brands.
What is the USP of AND?
AND is the first Indian brand to offer global silhouettes to the modern Indian woman. The brand offers contemporary westernwear fashion that marries comfort, quality and style. The brand is ever-evolving keeping in mind the choices of the urban Indian woman. Our product categories include dresses, tops, denims, jumpsuits, shirts, co-ord sets, jewellery, shoes, belts, sunglasses, scarves, hand bags, perfumes, and mists.
What has been the response from tier 2 and tier 3 towns to westernwear? Has it grown? Can you share some specifics?
As mentioned earlier, with the advent of digital commerce, westerwear proliferation in the tier 2 and tier 3 towns has been very fast. With e-commerce players servicing almost all pin codes of the country, we can see customer base growing.
What are the challenges exclusive to the women’s westernwear market?
The primary challenge is competition in the form of international brands entering the Indian market. Otherwise, the market is growing very fast.
The relationship with clothes has changed post-pandemic. How are you planning to adapt to it?
Pre-pandemic, tops and dresses were those categories that contributed to a significant portion of our revenue. Hence, we were not impacted much during the pandemic. However, now with offices opening and social events happening, we are seeing the buying pattern similar to pre-pandemic levels.
What steps has the House of Anita Dongre taken towards sustainability?
Sustainability is the need of the hour. House of Anita Dongre has been a forerunner in the Indian fashion industry towards identifying this early on. We have been taking steps towards creating responsible fashion. We are defining a new language for sustainability where we recognise the importance of giving it a voice of its own.
rECOgnise is a journey of sustainable initiatives, that ensure the products used in our collection are carefully curated using eco-friendly raw materials and responsible manufacturing processes.
To lead the change by going gorgeously green, consciously responsible and setting bold goals, we pledge that by 2022, 100 per cent of our packaging will be made from sustainable sources. All our tags and carry bags will be made from Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper. All our polybags, gift wrapping paper and corrugation boxes will be made from recycled material.
By 2025, more than 65 per cent of AND clothing will be from sustainable fabrics. Our garments will be made from sustainable and responsibly-sourced raw materials. We will ensure that our supply chain partners make our processes of dyeing, printing and water consumption more sustainable.
We also aim to recycle, re-use and compost our textile waste. We are committed to creating great fashion at the best price in a sustainable way.
What is the revenue that your e-commerce brings in? Has the pandemic changed this?
We were present in almost all e-commerce marketplaces prior to pandemic. Our own website was well established. During the pandemic, we invested heavily in improving the customer experience and have migrated our websites to the salesforce platform. Our e-commerce revenue as a percentage of sales is in the early double digits.
How do you plan to offer a seamless omni-channel and online shopping experience to your customers?
As mentioned earlier, we are operating our website for the past eight years. We implemented omni-channel almost three years back. Our operations with respect to omni-channel is seamless not only in relation to our own websites, but also with respect to the marketplaces as well.
Which markets or product categories do you plan to tap into next?
With respect to geographies, we are looking at expanding ourselves in tier 2 and tier 3 towns. Identifying new emerging segments, we have launched AND Girl recently. We have also launched first-ever range of AND fragrances, crafted and led by Ajmal Perfumes.
What was your growth for the last fiscal? What is the expected growth for the next 2-3 years?
With the last two fiscals significantly impacted due to COVID-19, it would be unfair to make any comparison. However, we launched three new brands during the pandemic—AND Girl, Global Desi Girl and ITSE. With these three brands coupled with the other three existing brands in the portfolio, we expect the company to grow significantly.
Published on: 27/05/2022
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.
