Sheriff focuses on shirts with lots of linen and dobbies

For the upcoming season, brand Sheriff known for its line of shirts, trousers, blazers and tees is bringing yarn dyed prints on linen, plain, dobbies, engineered stripes in shirts. Formals are subtle in pastel shades. Dheeraj Lada, from Sheriff says “People have become quality conscious. Fabrics have been developed to give a proper fit. Linen and cotton shirts have come a long way. There are varieties of cotton and linen in the line. Better the count, higher the price. What’s more European linen is coming entering India now. This caters to the luxury and made to order segment.” Fabric from Europe are making it to the market linen and cotton blends, linen and modal blends, Lycra and cotton blends are being imported. Jute linen is coming up. Shirts have a sleeker, contemporary look.

What sells the most?

Prints are in vogue these days. The best selling shirts are in prints. You have sober prints, flashy prints. Office wear has formal prints, motif prints. Shirts come in many categories. Formal and casual shirts are worn to office; then there are corporate wear denim and shirts. Formals have given way to casuals and semi casuals. In fact, semi casuals have become popular as it can be worn to office, a party or an evening out. Multipurpose shirts are the order of the day. The company has two shirt factories. Both in Howrah. The weekly production capacity for each factory is 5,000 pieces. Lada “We have a trouser factory and make 1,000 formal trousers a week. We have a factory for suits where we make 1,500 suit pieces a week. The other categories are outsourced.”

Business perspective

Lada rues, this year, end of season sale (EOSS) started ahead of time, perhaps an impact of November 8 demonetisation, and it may go on up till February. April sees a festive season in Kolkata. June-July is again mid season sale. And then there is the Durga Puja season. This is a time for gift vouchers and offers. Thereafter, winter and the wedding season follow. And it’s time for another EOSS.

Lada says, November 8 did impact the brand as the Friday following it was a disaster. Retail sales plunged like never before by 25 to 30 percent and wholesale sale fell even more. The whole of November went past in the same manner. Garment production for the brands fell more or less by half. “But I support the decision taken by the Prime Minister. It is a step towards a cashless economy. It will help mid level brands. At a fair recently, we saw a good amount of bookings. Till October 2016, we grew by 25 per cent. And then it took a dip,” Lada informs.

Sheriff is retailed through 450 MBOs and 14 EBOs (all of them are in East India). They are spread in Kolkata, Assam, Tripura. An average Sheriff EBO is spread over 400 square feet. Some may go up to 1,200 square feet. The company is planning to open more EBOs. One of which will have an area of 10,000 square feet. The company plans to enter Bhubaneshwar and Bangalore, etc. “We sell on MRPs. We hold EOSS in Assam once a year at a time when there is a demand. But in other states, we have an EOSS twice or thrice a year,” informs Lada.