Breakbounce unveils ‘Shacket’ a fusion of shirts and a jacket

Breakbounce Streetwear just unveiled its latest sweatshirts collection ‘Shacket’, which is picked up from the details of a shirt and utility plus look and feel of a jacket giving it an edgy streetwear and utility combination to choose from. Shacket is an extension of the company’s lightweight layering options this season.

The sweatshirts are available in different styles such as zip-up hoodies, round necks, Henley necks and zip-up sweatshirts. Inspired from global street fashion, the entire range is designed with catchy intricate details and neon highlights.

Talking about this season’s fabric trends, Sanjeev Mukhija, MD, Breakbounce Streetwear elaborates, “This season’s popular blends are cotton and polyester comprising half of the collection. From fabric innovation perspective, it is basically the blend of different fabrics that we usually play with like, cotton, polyester, Lycra, spandex, etc.” Highlighting the importance of innovation, Mukhija adds, “Innovation is crucial in fashion especially when you talk about streetwear where nothing is consistent. Here, innovation is a key to differentiate a brand and create its unique proposition in terms of fashion offering to the market.” The colour palette for this season is dark tones like black, navy, melange grey etc., with little bit of neon and neutrals to balance the look and feel of the collection called ‘The Urban Wonderland’.

Growing fashion utility

Among winter wear products, sweatshirts have a specific job that differentiates this category from its competitors. It’s light, warm, easy to carry, trendy and comfortable. It can be paired with a denim or even shorts and chinos to create a streetwear look. Mukhija, says, “Lightweight products are in demand particularly in India because of its tropical climate. It just doesn’t serve as winter wear but can also give a good layering option when temperatures drop during monsoons. Hence its serves as a year-long category and not just winter wear. The company is looking at scaling up this category to include, fresh and global street fashion nuances.”

The size of sweatshirt market is big and becoming bigger, across age-groups people are opting for sweatshirts to boost their winter style. The main reason pushing growth is growing fashion awareness and personalised style that every customer wants. Utility and style are the key fashion elements that push sweatshirts’ market. Talking about the market structure, Mukhija informs, “The market is organised as far as brands and retail formats are concerned in urban and Tier I cities. However, a large part of the segment is still unorganised run through retail distribution in smaller towns. We fall under the organised category serving consumers through online and offline retail formats. However, to cater to smaller towns we are expanding our footprint to regional distribution.” Sweatshirts as a category works better in metros as people are more particular about style and trends.

Growth projections

Breakbounce sees more potential in men’s segment where sweatshirts are a wardrobe staples in winters. Being a light and easy wear, this category has always been preferred over any other winter wear. This year the target is to achieve 50 per cent year-on-year growth. The company plans to expand in the international market with focus on both online and retail formats. Talking about competition he says, “Competition is high but instead of being threatened, we look at it as an opportunity to work harder and create more value for the brand in terms of design, fabric, comfort, and utility.”

Retail Footprint

The brand is across major MBOs in India such as Central, Lifestyle, Westside and Globus. Online, the company is present across all leading e-commerce websites such as Myntra, Flipkart, Jabong, Koovs and ABOF. It recently launched its own EBO and e-commerce site shop.breakbounce.com. In the future, the company intends to expand retail to UAE, Canada and Europe.