Indian apparel industry is not particularly known for its autumn/winter collections, a reason why buyers affix their prime focus on spring/summer leaving out minimum time for exporters to conceive fall collections. For many exporters, a prolonged summer session for product development this year has pushed A/W collection developments to August, while some exporters have already started their fall collections reciprocating to their buyer needs. With buyers juggling between fall and summer silhouettes, Indian exporters have their plates full with both collections, becoming a multi-resource platform rather than being fixated on single season PD philosophy…
and sequencing
As per tradition, the spring/summer product development process used to get wrapped up by May/June with orders for the season coming in from July/August, but this year instead of being in production, the S/S’15 collections are still being finalized. “We have not started our product development for the winter season yet, as we are still on the design finalization stage of our S/S’15 collections. Buyers are now buying closer to the season as they don’t want to take much risks with stocks and prefer to buy many times within the season to remain as close to the actual sales dates as possible, therefore the product development for fall has moved from end July to September,” avers Ravi Poddar, Director, Cheer Sagar. Stressing on the fact that India is lacking in production of contemporary silhouettes and new trends, Ravi’s “not very Indian looking” S/S’15 collection is an amalgamation of double layered laser-cut garments, twills and herringbone weaved rayon fabric, solid coloured blouses and tunics with bead-work, sequencing and minimal embroidery.
Another exporter with core competence in PD, Mossanite Apparels, is also still working on their S/S’15 collection for their buyers from US, Europe and Middle East. Corroborating with Ravi’s statement, Anshu Saxena, Director/Designer of the company shares, “One of the reasons why the seasons have been extended, is India’s strength in producing summer collections, which somehow overshadows the fall offerings. Buyers are keen to pick up summer silhouettes, even till the last moment but they don’t look at India as a strong autumn/winter style provider.” The company is developing styles like kimonos, jumpers, rompers, summer dresses, culottes and palazzos, in pastels with a tinge of bright colours. The collection witnesses the return of 80’s oversized florals mixed with fun elements of dying and printing with very minimal embroidery.
While some exporters, responding to their buyers’ needs are still doing summer, there are a set of exporters who have started their research and product development for the A/W’15-16 season. Among them, the team at Pearl Global, which has just now got over with their S/S’15 collection, has started with their research and trend analysis for the fall. Elucidating this, Shiwani Dhingra, Sr. Designer of the company, says, “We are currently exploring the market conditions and preferences in Southern American, US and Europe, and also taking inspirations from leading forecasting sites, before conceiving any collections. Though the styles are not decided as yet, but we are thinking on lines of developing knitted tops, trousers, flared skirts and maxi and midi length dresses and jackets.”
Jaipur based Sopra Overseas, have started their product development for fall, for their buyers in Spain and UK, where they are making the same styles they did in their summer collection, but only in darker winter colours. “We are making tunics, mid length dresses, and blouses in cotton jerseys and woven. We are also doing polycrepe/linen jackets, flannel shirts and trousers in neutral colours like blacks, browns and shades of grey,” informs Ashish Sopra, Owner of the company. The fabrics mostly being used in their collections are cottons, wool, flannel, jerseys, with digital graphic prints and a little bit of embroidery.
As seen in the S/S’15 collections, prints seems to be an overexploited category in A/W’15-16 collections as well. Mostly carried out in digital, a few styles are also created in screen and rotary to support the price points of the buyers. Kamal Manchanda, Proprietor, Sawhney Export House, is developing only accessories like scarves, stoles, shawls and bags for her European and South American buyers for the coming fall season, and graphic digital prints or panel prints with embroidery are the highlights of her collection. “For the A/W season, we are mostly doing accessories; no garment product development has started as yet. The products are in woven and jacquards in wool, acrylic and silks in black, all shades of grey, beige, brown, plum, burgundy, sand, mushroom shades and olives,” informs Kamal.
While some exporters are still experimenting with vibrant prints, a refreshing lot of exporters are addressing the ever-increasing demand for embellishments and embroidery. After the success of embellished styles in their S/S’15 collections, JJ Expo Impo has taken this value addition technique further into their A/W’15-16 collection as well. Goonjan Kumar, Designer with the company explains, “We are developing mostly tops and dresses in cotton jerseys and wovens for our buyers in the US and Europe. We are not doing much of bottom wear, only a few skirts and wide-legged trousers, besides that jackets, both in leather and fabric where we are producing mix and matched styles with leather inserts in elbow and shoulder padding completes our product basket. As our forte is embroidery, these styles are designed keeping that in mind. We are doing embroidery, mostly by hand on necklines, cuffs, collars, waistbands, etc.”
Goyal Fashions is using computerized embroidery and hand beadwork as highlights in the garments. “For our clients in UK, we are doing only rayon based fabrics for fall/winter right now and in rayon we are doing plenty of different kinds of weaves, like twill, herringbone, dobby, moss crepes, moss rayon. We are majorly producing quarter-sleeve and full-sleeve blouses and tunics with a small quantity of zippered bomber jackets. Embroidery and beadwork is not being used to cover the entire surface but to highlight places like, cuffs, collars, neckline, sleeve-hems, waistbands, back yoke, etc. The colours mostly in demand for this season are solid colours like, black, purple, electric blue, vermillion orange, reds besides a few jewel colours also,” shares Pankaj Rastogi, Head – Design and Development.
With some exporters focusing on S/S’15 and some on A/W’15-16, there is also a small niche set of exporters who have started developing their collections for S/S’16 as well, as some buyers tend to skip the entire fall altogether and start working on their next summer collections because they focus on India as a summer centric garment producer only. Kamal, who has been working on developing S/S’16 collection for her South American buyer explains, “We have started product development for our South American buyers, as they are summer-specific buyers and only focus on summer wear. The fabrics used are light weights, like, georgette, chiffons, and other light weight cottons.”
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
