Riot turns to fast fashion, focus on brand building

Planning to follow the fast fashion approach this Spring/Summer season onwards, Riot, wants to reach the new styles to consumers in less time. With Rs 15 crores turnover per annum, Suditi Industries the company behind the brand, is looking to 40-50 percent growth next year. Though the company is not

looking at expanding its retail presence this year, it wants to strengthen its existing network. “This year is less about expansion and more about consolidation, creating a larger loyalty base and dramatically improving results with the resources we already have,” explains Animesh Maheshwari, Vice President, Suditi Industries.

Fast-

fashion for faster reach

Indo-western styles are part of the brand’s collection. “We don’t define our brand by category. We define it by our target. We are a young brand and provide young funky designs with a western twist on Indian wear or an Indian spin on western wear,” states Maheshwari.

Riot’s portfolio consists of T-shirts, polo’s, boxers, shorts, shirts, jeans, jackets and even flip flops for men and racer backs, spaghettis, round neck T’s, shirts, dresses, shrugs, jackets, boxer shorts, jeans and a few indo western kurtis for women. Elaborating on the new styles introduced recently, Maheshwari says, “This year we have planned a core (round neck, V neck, Henleys), which will be quality, fit and colour focused. We will offer about 50 colours under men’s collection across various styles. Along with this, we’ve improved our range exponentially by playing with different fabrics, print techniques and silhouettes as opposed to our usual cotton knit/round-neck approach.”

The brand follows the Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter fashion cycle. One of company’s goals this year is to reduce the time it takes from idea to final product. “We have everything in-house and want to take full advantage of it. The fast fashion theory can only be implemented once we shorten our lead time from idea to final product. We are working towards it as it increases the walk-ins by the same customer,” opines Maheshwari.

Strengthening retail presence

Riot has 16 exclusive brand outlets and a presence in more than 150 MBOs, 17 Bharati stores and e-commerce portals like Myntra, Jabong, Flipkart, Fashionara, Yebhi and Snapdeal. “Our expansion this year will be slower in terms of number of stores we open. We’ve have got our presence on all top online platforms and are opening our own e-commerce website this year. What we really want to see this year is consumer response to our range which we have worked extremely hard on.”

As far as brand building activities are concerned, the focus is on all types of print and social media marketing. Maintaining connectivity and presence through not only all social media like Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr and Stumble but also through print ads in newspapers, magazines and branding in malls.

Riot caters solely to the youth. “The name therefore was chosen not for its meaning but for its connotation. Our idea was to exude a similar rebellious nature as seen in the young adults who we target. Our stores, slightly dingy and funky along with our tagline ‘Your life, your rules’ help convey the same theme,” sums up Maheshwari.