Year 2014: E-commerce bug bit the designer fraternity too

Year 2014 was completely the year for e-commerce. The wave brought private and global brands and apparel retailers online either through their own or third-party portals. This opened new doors of opportunities for designers. The fashion industry saw a remarkable turn of events – from designers creating exclusive collections for web platforms like Jabong, Myntra, Fashionara, Limeroad, Stylista and so on to leading online platforms associating themselves with popular fashion weeks like Wills India Fashion Week or Lakme Fashion Week apart from launching their own versions of online fashion weeks.

Expensive designer ensembles that so far remained a dream for shoppers are now up for grabs online. E-commerce has changed the way consumers shopped and what they shopped for. Designer wear by acclaimed designers like Rohit Bal, Raghavendra Rathore to Ritu Kumar is now easily available online, thanks to the aggressive marketing efforts of portals like Jabong, Myntra and Flipkart. Interestingly, clothes by these top fashion designers are now available at affordable prices too, the range hovers just anywhere between Rs 3,500-15,000.

Fashion rules the roost

While fashion portals like Fashionara and Limeroad reached consumers staying in non-metros with affordable designer range, style specialists like Perniaspopupshop, Koovs and Stylista introduced international labels and curated capsule collections for the Indian audiences. Fashion in India is the second largest category in online retail drawing almost 25 percent of all sales, with operating margins of 35 percent, as per a study by retail consultancy Technopak. No wonder, Flipkart acquired Myntra to strengthen its fashion portfolio and Amazon recently announced launch of its exclusive fashion vertical under its portfolio.

Designers are going all out shedding their image as caterers of fashion to a group of select, high-heeled customers. Stylista.com was the first to launch affordable lines by Wendell Rodricks, Priyadarshini Rao, Nishka Lulla and Surendri by Yogesh Chaudhary last year, adding Masaba Gupta, Shivan & Narresh and Monica Dogra to the collective in 2014. Jabong quickly followed with a special collection in collaboration with designer Rohit Bal, making the designer’s pieces accessible to everyone from Rajkot to Rai Bareilly, and followed it up by bringing the Gaurav Gupta-draped sari within Rs 9,000 per piece.

Going a step ahead, another leading portal Snapdeal partnered with the Fashion Design Council of India and added names like Manish Arora, Ashish N Soni, Malini Ramani and Varun Bahl, among others, to its offerings. But even as portals were setting their sights abroad and roping in international brands like River Island, Miss Selfridge (Jabong), Oasis, Warehouse, Lipsy, Henry Holland and Mawi Keivom (Koovs), Priya Sachdev’s TSG International launched Rock n Shop taking Halston Heritage to Haryana and Saint Laurent to Surat. Indo-American portal Exclusively.in entered the Indian e-commerce market.

Luxury fashion finds its way too

Apart from Indian designers, even global names in fashion made their way to households in small towns through online route. From Alexander McQueen, Marchesa to Jean Paul Gaultier, such brands reached smaller cities along with a Tarun Tahiliani kurta or a Manish Malhotra sari at the click of a mouse. Now leading names from the India fashion industry, plan to create exclusive capsule collections for e-stores.

While some names like Ritu Kumar, Anita Dongre, Neeru Kumar and Shivan & Narresh quickly understood the path of changing winds and capitalised on the online opportunities. And others like Rohit Gandhi + Rahul Khanna, Payal Singhal, Gaurav Gupta, AM:PM and Surendri by Yogesh Chaudhary followed suit this year.

As per a study by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), India's Rs 720-crores designer wear industry is likely to top Rs 11,000 crores by 2020. Assocham attributed the growth to higher disposable income and rising awareness about fashion even in small towns.