Celio’s uber cool A/W to launch this month

Focused on providing certain sophistication along with elegance and comfort to a man’s wardrobe, Celio the French menswear brand, is getting ready to launch their autumn/winter collection this month. Rajat Luthra, CEO, Celio avers,

“Wardrobes will be represented by moments of life in the new collection. Our A/W collection will have different hits within a season to keep the novelty going for customers. We will also be having special offers for occasions like the Commonwealth games and Diwali.”

Celio will have two lines – Urban and Relax. The urban line will be introduced with two themes – Citystart and Skybar. While Urban-Citystart entails urban styles for every day, combining elegance, charm and comfort; Urban-Skybar would have modern and sophisticated products, ideal for evening wear. The Relax line will be launched under the themes -- Traveller and Moove. With the Relax traveller range, the brand seeks to maintain the fundamental Celio style, ideal for relaxing and getting away. “Relaxation and technicality would be the keywords of our urban sport line –Moove,” opines Luthra.

Currently, Celio operates out of 13 stand alone stores across India both in high street locations and prominent shopping malls and over 48 shop-in-shops in large format stores of Pantaloon, Central and Lifestyle. As a part of their expansion strategy, they are planning to add 15 more exclusive stores in the metros. They are currently exploring various markets to open flagship stores. “Organic growth with shop-in-shops will also continue to fuel expansion plans. In the near future we will be strengthening our presence in the south with more stand alone stores in Bangalore and Hyderabad. In the north, we are looking at reaching out to markets in Amritsar and Ludhiana. We will soon have an exclusive outlet in Pune where we are already present in Lifestyle and Central,” avows Luthra.

Whenever a foreign brand enters India the pricing is of utmost importance as the Indian customer wants value for money. Luthra adds, “Our prices are 25 to 30 per cent lower in India than what’s available abroad. We are not at the same price point as what it is in France for example. We make lesser margins than what they are making.” The company has a lot of merchandize that’s imported and a lot of merchandize that’s made in India.  Going forward, they plan to make more merchandize within India as they expand.

Celio, one of the largest brands in France has a tie-up with Future Group in India. It’s a joint venture with equal partnerships. Celio and Future Group came together and thus the company called Celio Future Fashion was formed. Luthra says, “Celio Future Fashion has aggressive plans for India. We will not be exporting under the JV. We have invested over Rs 25 crores so far. This year we will be investing around Rs 10- Rs15 crores. This is the total investment which includes both stores and brand-building exercise.”