612 Ivy League wins ‘Best Kidswear’ award

Kidswear brand 612 Ivy League from Indian Clothing League has won the ‘Best Kidswear’ award at the Shoppers Stop Pinnacle awards for the year 2011-12. The brand launched three years back citing a gap in the pre-teen kidswear category

was instantly noticed and it is now looking at spreading it wings by launching EBOs and adding another brand in the infant wear category. Commenting on the successful journey and recent recognition at the Shoppers Stop Pinnacle Awards, Manu Indrayan, MD, Indian Clothing League says, “This marks an important landmark in our journey that started just three years ago and encourages us to double our efforts in making 612 Ivy League, the foremost Indian kids’ wear brand across the country.”

Right now their product range is for four years and above and they are planning to launch a brand called Baby League for infants up to two years. “We will test launch this by spring/summer ’13 with our EBOs and some large formats.” Apart from that, they are opening an EBO at Ambala and two more are in the pipeline, one in Ludhiana and one in Amritsar. “We are looking at three EBOs in Delhi but that would be by spring/summer ’13,” he adds.

The brand is also available with 78 Reliance Trends stores, Maya by Gitanjali, Little Champs and Prateek Lifestyle. “In all, we are in some 155 retail chains. This is an equal mix between the north and the south, east and west. We will expand within these chains and also add chains like Central, Lifestyle. Right now we have two EBOs, one in Chandigarh and one in Ludhiana,” explains Indrayan.

Ivy League’s product range consists of casual wear for boys and girls between six to 12 years. The collection consists of round neck and collar tees, shirts, denims, Jamaicans, sweat shirts, track suits, jackets, and sweaters. Commenting on the brand’s inception, Indrayan says, “We realised that there was a huge gap in the category of pre-teen children. Internationally there are products designed keeping these children in mind. But in India, this space was vacant. So we launched the brand in 2008-09. We began in Ludhiana with 12 machines and then took the product to four stores of Shoppers Stop in March 2009. Then we increased our presence at a rapid rate.”

Achieving 200 per cent growth in the first two years of its inception, the brand is targeting a growth of 60 per cent. “Right now, our focus is on expanding our reach. We are increasing our production capacity as well. We have just constructed a new factory in Ludhiana, which will enable us to make 75,000 garments a month. We are also planning to introduce a new concept of mix and match options within the range for spring/summer 2013,” Indrayan sums up.