Diesel steams into India

Italian fashion brand Diesel is all set to launch its first store in India by the third week of March. The brand

is making its India foray in partnership with Reliance Brands, a unit of India’s business corporate house Reliance Industries. Earlier, Diesel had tried to enter India through a tie-up with Arvind Brands but its attempts fell through. The new company, Diesel Fashion India Reliance, will initially open five stores. Two of these will be in Mumbai and one each in Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Though the collection will range from Rs 2,000 and Rs 50,000, the average price of jeans will be in the range of Rs 8,000 to Rs 17,000.

Diesel shall position itself in the super luxury segment and compete with brands like Hugo Boss, Paul Smith to name a few. Diesel is known for its provocative and sometimes shocking ads. Typically, the brand spends its 8-10 per cent of its annual sales on advertising. In January this year, Diesel globally launched the ‘Be Stupid’ campaign; the same campaign will be extended to launch the brand to promote its debut 2010 spring/summer collection in India.

Although industry experts have mixed feelings about the brand’s success, Reliance Brands believes it has made a good bet. Now, it is left to the Indian customer whether they will be sufficiently drawn by the Diesel mystique to dig so deep into their pockets.