Women’s denim to propel Arvind’s growth

Ahmedabad-based denim major Arvind feels women’s denim

is the way to go forward. While, stretch and soft fabrics meant for women forms only 25 per cent, of their production, in the next two years Arvind wants to take it up to over 35 per cent. Recently it introduced excel denim in association with Birla Cellulose that offers stretchability and softness in denim for women. Focused on women’s jeans, the excel denim fabric has already been commercialized internationally, earning a business of Rs 45 crores. The company expects excel denim to do Rs 2,200 crores business in two years. Arvind wants to be a big player in women’s denim wear. Overall, it is bullish about on the denim business, expecting a 15 to 20 per cent growth.

Globally, close to five billion meters of denim are produced, three billion or 65 per cent of which forms women’s wear. In India, it’s the opposite. Of the 400 million meters of denim consumed domestically, 85 per cent is aimed at men’s wear while the rest is distributed among women and kids. Meanwhile, in formal wear, the company did around 100,000 pieces of Arvind Intellifabrix, a ready-to-stitch denim product aimed at work wear. Besides, the company launched a range of pretreated ‘ready-to-stitch’ (RTS) denims under the brand name of Arvind Intellifabrix in different collections including denim chinos and denim jeans developed by the R&D team of Denim Fabrics division.

Arvind Mills was set up with the pioneering effort of the Lalbhai brothers in 1931. With the best of technology and business acumen, Arvind has become a true Indian multinational, having chosen to invest strategically, where demand has been high and quality required has been superlative. Arvind Mills is the flagship company of the Rs 20 billion Lalbhai group. Arvind is one of the top three producers of denim in the world.