The Indian garment export industry is best known for its value additions and capabilities of small runs in mass to high fashion for the global apparel trade. Over time buyers have sought inspiration from the many techniques available in the country differentiating it from countries like China and Bangladesh, who are better known for volumes and cheaper prices. While many players have invested in putting together a team of creative designers to develop products which are fresh and innovative, there are many others who still work with tech-packs, considering investment in PD as a waste of resources. On analysis, both models have pros and cons and the decision on whether to invest in a PD team is actually depended on the buyer profile.
ven though PD has not been the only means to survive in the ever changing business of fashion, the trend is surely witnessing a pleasant change with more and more exporters wanting to build an in-house PD team to support their business, offering different techniques and in many cases entire collections to the buyer. Even those exporters who have thrived without a PD team are now contemplating the move for growth.
Gurgaon based Neetee Clothing is a perfect example of a player that has sustained its business for long without a PD team, though the products they make are very design-oriented.“We have never had a product development team, as our major business comes from big catalogue companies. Having a pre existing huge customer profile, our catalogue buyers have always known what would sell the best with them, and therefore we have always received detailed techpacks, only to be produced as photo samples from our end,” says Animesh Saxena, CEO, Neetee Clothing. With a guarantee to receive a minimum order of 1200 pieces per style, once the sample is approved by the buyers, the company is always assured of regular business and concentrates its energies on processes to produce the garment flawlessly.
Another company working on similar lines is Karni Exports, which deals with high fashion ladies garments and kids wear for girls, working mostly with catalogue and wholesale chain stores. These buyers send their designs along with set storylines, colour, fabric and print details with measurements and the accessories to be incorporated in each style, reducing the need to hire designers in-house to almost a zero. “Just like catalogue buyers, even the wholesalers know their clients and prefer to design in-house, they send their designs to us only to be developed as samples on which we get minimum orders, ranging from 200 to 1000 pieces, in different styles, colours and 5 to 6 sizes per style,” says Pradeep Nahata, Proprietor, Karni Exports.
Agreeing to the fact that tech-packs reduces the scope of presenting original designs and collections, Rajeev Kumar, Director, Modish Knitwears, manufacturer of flat knit garments adds, “As I am myself from a knit background, I hold the capability to design myself, and therefore have never required designers. Moreover, the changes we make are very minor and that too as per the buyer requirements. Since the designs are sent to us, we are asked to submit similar fabrics available in our market, close to what the buyer is looking for.” The company also deals with domestic clients like Peter England and Color Plus and surprisingly these domestic players are also providing their tech-packs, only to be produced by the manufacturer in the required quantities.
But even when all the above players are comfortable with their business modules, they expressed interest to invest in product development teams in order to expand with different buyers and participate in international fairs with original concepts for higher UVRs.
Sky Overseas, extracting business from boutique and fast fashion buyers from Gulf countries, Dubai, Japan and Europe, dwells strongly with a product development team of 8 to 10 design professionals which include designers from India and abroad. While the Indian designers work in-house, understanding and implementing the designs, the foreign designers are a resource for updated international trends that are more global in approach. Discussing the benefit that the PD team provides to the company, Eti Gupta, Director of the company says, “With an ongoing design development happening in our company, we make 6 to 7 fresh collection every season which gives us the advantage of getting new buyers all the time. Once the buyers choose our design, we only have to customize the samples according to the changes they want, and the sizes they provide.”
Manufacturing Indian ethnic wear for markets such as Canada, USA, UK, Malaysia and Singapore, Shalini’s Indian Fashions, deals with boutique buyers who may order small, but are always on a lookout for new and trendy designs. “With the market of big buyers almost saturating due to their sourcing spread all over the world, it is the boutique buyers that look for fresh business all the time with exporters who can provide them with strong product development. Having our own PD team of 5 people in-house, we have always had an edge over others, manufacturing our own copyright designs of almost 250 styles per season which attracts a brand new profitable footfall for us,” said Shalini Jain, Director of the company.
Dealing with a variety of buyers, requires that the in-house resources are equipped to work with both tech-packs and original designs. While Ahuja Overseas, on one hand works on tech-packs for big buyers like Fashion Import in Europe and Rapsodia in South America, it also has an in-house design team which includes 7 designers developing 200 to 300 styles every season. “We work with a wide set of buyers, that are big buyers, high fashion buyers, and even wholesalers. While the big companies always work with their tech-packs owing to their strong design teams, the high fashion buyers also provide us with a detailed brief that includes ideas, colours, feel, look and the kind of fabric they are looking for, but still expects us to design further from them. But what is changing with the wholesalers especially from South America is the fact that even though they order in big quantities, they are now working on a cost control and therefore do not want to invest in a PD team. This is where our PD team provides an edge, as we are constantly feeding them with fresh designs and also collaborating with them for designs,” says Archana Ahuja, Director, Ahuja Overseas.
With cost cutting becoming a need in global trade, many brands/retailers that had huge PD teams are now cutting down and looking at outsourcing their design development to players who can partner with them, developing a greater need for an exporter to invest in a PD team for the future. Many companies working with the best of brands admit that they are doing PD but would prefer to call it ‘collaborative partnership’, all because the retailers and brands do not wish to acknowledge that they are picking up developments of vendors in India.
This is particularly seen with the rapid growth of fast fashion, whereby companies like Zara and H&M cater new collections every two months, making it practically impossible for such retailers to come up with so many designs every time in-house. This is where the PD teams are becoming the key to support such partnerships. Already realizing this need, companies are mixing both the services. Operating with a mix ’n match approach they work with buyers who send their tech-packs and also develop own collections with new stories as per the forecast, to serve the other set of buyers. They all firmly believe that this module suits every kind of business opportunity that comes their way and strengthens them as a company for the future.
