Celebrity Fashions to hive off Indian Terrain as a company

Indian Terrain, the men’s apparel brand from apparel exporter Celebrity Fashions Group is focusing hard on becoming a Rs 100-crores brand. To achieve this goal, the company is planning to spin off Indian Terrain as a separate entity by the end of this year. V Rajagopal,

Chairman and MD, Celebrity Fashions is optimistic that in the next three to four years Indian Terrain, a ten-year-old brand, can match Celebrity’s export business, which stands at around Rs 200 crores as of now.

To widen the brand’s profile among its target audience of 20-45 plus men, Indian Terrain is teeing off what is to be a deep association with golf by signing on a young golfer as a brand ambassador. “We feel golf is the right sport to be associated with. Since fashion is an integral part of golf and it’s one of the few sports where there’s no uniform. Each individual brings his own fashion and tastes to the game. It’s becoming one of the fastest growing aspiration sports for young Indians. And we are targeting the premium customer in urban cities,” says Charath Narasimhan, CEO, Celebrity Fashions Group. “We are a casual brand and our products suit the amateur golf player. The sport is a vehicle to strengthen our image as a casual brand,” avers Narasimhan.

Last year, the brand sold three lakh T-shirts across all markets. Indian Terrain has signed up former golfer Rishi Narain’s golf management company to take the brand across the golf circuit as the presenting sponsor of the World Corporate Golf Challenge. “We are leveraging his organizational expertise to associate ourselves with the sport,” says Narasimhan.

Meanwhile, the brand is planning to launch accessories. “We will be starting accessories which will complement our apparel range. In the pipeline are belts, casual socks and bags. We will price these according to our product image,” says Narasimhan.

Rajagopal says the Indian Terrain brand experienced 20 per cent growth last year and expects this trend to continue this year as well. The brand has seen distribution expand in the metros as well as mini-metros. At the moment there are 240 MBOs. These generate 45 per cent of sales revenues for the brand. Nearly 30 per cent sales revenues come from large formats and 25 per cent from their own stores. The brand plans to have nearly 45 EBOs by the end of this month and will add 15 to 20 more EBOs during the year.

Most of these will be in Tier II and Tier III towns like Mangalore, Coimbatore, Trichy, Mysore, Bhopal, Allahabad, Nagpur and in mini-metros like Ahmednagar, Visakhapatnam, Bikaner and Jodhpur.