Coochhie Coo: Designer wear for little ones

Coochhie Coo, a luxury designer wear brand for children is fast emerging as a niche brand for the upwardly mobile segment. Elaborating on the brand’s positioning, Sagrika Mittal, Director, Coochhie Coo says, “Offering a select readymade range

in the age group 0 to 12 years, we rely heavily on custom-made dresses, understanding that every parent wants to dress up their precious ones in their own special taste and liking. We try and understand what they like and merge it with our own aesthetics and give them a complete designer wear custom tailored offering.”

The brand specializes in custom-made special occasion wear, along with night wear, and semi formals through its ready to pick range. Within three years of establishment, it has managed to create a niche for itself in the kids’ wear market. As of now, the brand’s collection is being retailed through two exclusive EBOs, one in MGF Metropolitan Mall, Delhi and the other at Gurgaon’s DT Mega Mall. “We plan to expand in northern parts of the country and through multi designer outlets in other prominent markets. Achieving a growth of 30 per cent every year, we are targeting 40 per cent growth in the coming fiscal with strong marketing plans,” explains Mittal.

Contrary to common belief that kids’ outgrow their clothes soon and therefore it is difficult to cater to this segment, Mittal believes that any fashion is short-lived, so kids’ outgrowing a dress in a season is not of much importance. “Secondly, the dresses are of such a good quality these days that they are kept for siblings,” she adds.

Kids should look like kids, is her strong belief. Sagrika Mittal, herself a leading designer and a proprietor of the company feels that clothes should at the most add to the innocence and promote it rather than make them fashion slaves to a fad. But at the same time influences like TV and internet can’t be ruled out to decide what would appeal and what would sell, so there has to be a wise choice of styles which makes the kids look their age and at the same time appeal to the running fashion trends as a whole.

Commenting on the future of kids’ wear market, Mittal says, “It still hasn’t seen much concentration from big players. And considering that more than one third of our population is in the age group six to 18 years, we can surely say that the business opportunities are huge.” Talking about the challenges, she further adds, “The challenges are numerous. For example, even the customer needs to be educated and be told to be demanding. At times, they are unaware that they can have styles customized and served for their age and not settle for styles which are actually designed for older girls and are cut short to meet their size, having no relevance for them in terms of style.”