H&M India to sell saris designed by Sabyasachi Mukherjee

H&M will soon offer saris for Indian women. Designed by Sabyasachi Mukherjee the saris will be mass-priced. The Swedish retailer stocks fast fashion created in-house and teams up with designers for one-time collections but so far has restricted its merchandise to Western wear in India. This is for the first time H&M will be selling ethnic wear. The aim is to create interest for the collection with merchandise going beyond the conventional western wear.

In India, ethnic wear is the single biggest category in women’s wear, accounting for over 70 per cent of the segment with saris controlling a third of the market. H&M has opened a store a month in India on an average so far since its entry in October 2015. The retailer has 47 doors and follows a December to November financial year, and reported sales growth of 45 per cent in 2019. With China facing factory shutdowns due to outbreak, H&M may look at increased sourcing from India for its global needs. However a large numbers of H&M stores are located in the US and Europe, and since India doesn’t have a free trade agreement with them, sourcing from India is expensive.