President Obama’s unaware endorsement

Trust a savvy Indian apparel company to leverage the US

President’s visit to India in its favor. Whilst the American President was busy with his schedule, SKNL, the well-known Indian textile and apparel manufacturer placed full page ads in two of the nation’s most venerated dailies, showing Barack Obama wearing a Hart Schaffner Marx suit.

Above the president’s picture, a big headline stated “Welcome President Obama”. The picture itself was a screen grab from his appearance in a popular American chat show “The View” and not so subtly shows the jacket having fallen open, revealing the brand label of Hart Schaffner Marx. In the Indian advertisement, the label area was magnified to ensure the message was driven home. The suit President Obama is wearing in the ad is part of Hart Schaffner’s Gold Trumpeter collection. They cost $1,500 a piece and are 97 per cent worsted wool and 3 per cent cashmere, according to the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper. The Chicago based Hartmarx has made several suits for Barack Obama, including the one he wore at his inauguration.

SKNL and its UK-based partner bought the American brand in 2009 when it took over Hartmarx Corp for $120 million. Indian textile companies for decades have made apparel for well known Western brands, but recently bigger companies like SKNL have begun to buy some of those brands too. SKNL’s advertisement plays up the burgeoning commercial relationship between the two democracies, with a smaller slogan underneath the photo declaring, “Made in USA. Powered by India. A testament to Indo-US Friendship.” A spokesman for the company, Anees Fazalbhoy confirmed that SKNL had not received official sanction from the White House to use the image but indicated that it was a one-off incident to welcome the US President and was not to be considered a commercial campaign.