Mr Jain, how would you describe your group’s presence in textile arena today? Please also apprise us about your company’s present capacities.
As a Stanza brand, it is more of retail presence that we mark. We are present with almost 200 multi brand outlets and currently have about 13 shops of our own, and planning to open up few more stores such that by end of this year it would be hopefully around 20 shops in the country. Recently, we have tied up with Central Malls. We are part of Hyderabad Central currently, and planning to get in to these malls in other states too. We have also joined hands with Westside in Chandigarh, and in this month, going to start with Westside in Ludhiana and Indore. We have plans to expand this presence gradually.
Our manufacturing capacity is around 100 thousand shirts in a month. We envisage upcoming two quarters very good for our turnover. We are quite positive about good profit margins therein.
What is your outlook on Indian high-end apparel brand?
Market is really booming. It is better than last two – three years that industry saw. All markets are doing very well today because of optimism of consumers and industry as well. I believe the market growth of high end apparel brand is going to be very promising in coming months.
Stanza has been preferred supplier for big brands. What are current consumer preferences?
Consumers’ preferences are more towards casual wear, today. Lot of big checks, multicolor checks is in fashion. Everywhere Casual Color scheme is doing well. Also fabrics companies have forecasts on Checks, and lot of petrol washes viz enzymes wash, vintage wash and such finishes. The colors in trend are Steel, Maroon, Green, and Mauve-Purple.
Your shirts range aloud to be model, exemplary and unparalleled. Can you help us to know more about how STANZA made Shirt is different to others, and what creative aspects take behind making the final piece of garment?
For creative aspects, I would say that as we are working hand in gloves with top Italian fabric companies like Albini, Montini, and others. We get latest collections from them and introduce it further in Indian market. We are pioneers in that because no other Indian brand is doing so in such a big way. European brands that give this quality are very expensive, all priced between 10000 to 20000 rupees. The fabrics that brands like Dolce Gabana, Hugo Boss, Paul Smith are using making garment piece, same are used in making of Stanza shirts. In this way we are offering same quality in better price. That way, we are unparallel to any other because no other brand does the kind of sourcing that we do. This is possible because we have tied up with very good Italian companies. Also in terms of stitching quality, we are offering the best. We do 18-22 stitches per inch, 180- 220 stitches per button-hole, over lock stitch to side seem. All this adds up to the quality of shirts. So ultimately, we are getting contemporary designs and high quality in shirts. Thus, both mix of manufacturing and trend forecast makes Stanza stand different to others.
What activities are lined up to increase your market presence and how do you plan to take stanza to next level?
Idea is to be a part of large format shops, now. Where, as I said earlier, Central and Westside would be worked closely with, and we should be augmenting our retail presence with more number of our own outlets too.
Have you any plan on expansion of product range beside shirts?
We already offer trousers, besides shirts. We have suits, belts, ties and almost everything into men-prêt line under Stanza brand. Shortly, we are coming up in T-Shirts and Jeans as well. Currently in shirts, we are into all three lines viz Formal, Casual and Fashion. Stanza already offers formal and fashion trousers, and is to introduce casual trousers as well as launching jeans shortly.
Would you like to point out any hurdles that you see garment makers of our country facing in industry today?
There are two points that come to my mind on this; first, garment industry is a labor intensive industry. But efforts for training of these operators by Government are lethargic, I would say. If training of these operators is revived in a bigger way with the help of more aggressive initiatives by policy makers, industry would get much better results, because market is really growing. Secondly, prices of raw material for us i.e. fabric, are rising high as yarn prices are abnormally skyrocketing. I think there has to be more additional capacities that would improve the efficiency and bring down cost of raw materials.
I feel working on these two areas can help garment makers a lot to perform best.
So, at your company level, how do you sort out these hurdles?
Typically, we have arrangements of training operators. We have continuous trainings going on for 30-40 operators in order to bring out best of their skills and retain them. Secondly, on raw material issue we have little control over that, but we try managing it by adding good suppliers who offer us best fabrics at best prices as possible so that we can average out the increase of prices.
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Published on: 08/11/2010
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.
