Madame aims to increase its presence, double sales by 2018

“India is an immense market, it's a diamond mine waiting to explode. As for Women’s wear, we all can notice that the category is getting well accepted in conjunction with the ethnic wear. I believe we will achieve growth in women’s wear verticals, being a decade into the business, we have learnt which vertical to focus more on and which trends to pick on. Our aim is to get a small share of the enormously big pie, the small share might not be that small once put in perspective,” opines Avtar Thatti, GM (Marketing), Madame.

Women’s wear brand Madame has every range in apparels from summer tops to dresses to winters clothes. The style statement for coming season are: military outerwear, eyelets elements detailing, colour blocking, embroidery wear a statement outerwear, think colour, prints and embroidery. As a brand, Madame offers western wear clothing at affordable prices. Thatti feels, the arrival of global brands has changed the market scenario, “We have to deliver as per our consumers’ requirements and at the same time we need to keep a track of trends from fabrics to design development to silhouettes.”

Trends for the season

“Since we wear layers, we might get carried away with colours but to keep the outfit looking chic, don’t mix too many colours,” says Thatti. Keep the outfit neutral and take the leverage with footwear as there are too many trendy options this year like velvet boots, embroidered footwear, ballerina flats , white and nude footwear look very fresh, suggests Thatti. Madame is going to play with lot of silhouettes from bell sleeves, exposed buttons and zippers. This year you will also see a lot of bomber jackets for women.

Madame is working on a mix of fabrics from lace to chiffon, tulle, satin, velvet, lame, wool felt, satin, nylon, wool felt, ribbed knit, herringbone, suede, mohair, shearling, tweed, lurex, organza, chambray, felted wool, raw denim, wool herringbone, the list is long.

Growth drivers

Thatti points out the women’s wear market will grow to 48per cent of all readymade wear in 2019, from 35 per cent in 2014. Pace of growth is expected to be moderate from a CAGR of 15 per cent between 2009 to 2014 to 10-12 per cent between 2014-19. Women’s wear, grew at 9.5 per cent CAGR over 2010-15 and is expected to grown at 8.5 per cent CAGR by 2020. In order to be a part of this growth story, the company is adopting different innovative ideas and operating models including partnering with online market places, large format retail stores with Reliance and Shoppers Stop.

Thatti highlights competition is becoming interesting with new entries from cross border premium and commercial labels. Customers would gain with wide range of cutting edge fashion and better pricing. Quality of merchandises is the major concern for Indian customers and key Indian brands are equipped to take on competition by maintaining quality, matching price points and fashion forecasting in metros as well as in Tier II and III cities.

Talking about brand positioning initiatives, Thatti says, “We have taken the challenges to explore the segment in Indian market by downloading international fashion trends from metros to Tier II and then on to Tier III. Acceptability rate in Tier II & III is faster. We have attained a breakthrough in market segment creation as well as market shift from unbranded players.”

Madame aims to double sales with a growth rate of 22 per cent by fiscal 2018 riding on the back of new stores, presence in large format stores, innovative product offerings and increase in online sales in different marketplace.