Cup Cake rolling out fresh collections

The Cup Cake a brand of apparels for girls, which was officially launched by Mumbai-based J Gobindram at the National Garment Fair in 2010 has been growing from strength to strength. The company has had a long innings with children’s wear,

since its Bangalore-based associate has been manufacturing an export brand of children’s wear called Lolly Tags and in 2009 it launched another children’s line in India called Happy Face.  Shyam Jeswani, Director, J Gobindram explains, “We have been specializing in children’s wear and exporting mainly to Europe for many years. Our strength is casual wear. Most of the fabrics are summer-friendly. When we saw Indian consumers accepting the styling and valuing cotton more than they used to, that inspired us to start a dedicated girls’ dresses line -- Cup Cake -- for one year to six year olds.”

From the very start, Cup Cake has evoked a tremendous response. Buyers from all over India visiting the Cup Cake stall at the trade fair apparently loved the collection and found it different and out of the box. Jeswani feels, they found the prints fresh and the European styling wowed them. “We did a lot of research before launching Cup Cake. We had to fine tune the European inspiration to suit the Indian market. Within two months of launching we were supplying to 50 family stores in Mumbai, New Mumbai, Pune, Coimbatore, Bangalore, Ernakulam, Trivandrum, Hyderabad and Chennai.  Today, we are supplying to more than 81 MBOs”.

The success generated at the National Garment Fair in 2010 prompted the company to participate in the trade fair in 2011 with a product line extension called Mini Cup Cake catering to the new born to 18 months old infants. “Mini Cup Cake has also received a good response with new as well as existing clients. In fact 80 per cent of my production is done in the infants group. Mini Cup Cake is still not open to the international franchisee but for Cup Cake the international franchisee response has also been good. Our products are already going to Kuwait and soon will be going to Sri Lanka, Singapore and South Africa. Mini Cup Cake will go international soon.”

Cup Cake’s portfolio includes a premium line of casual woven dresses for girls as dresses are the main silhouettes for the brand. Most of the garments have printed fabrics and they are fully lined dresses, strappy dresses, short sleeve dresses. Prices start at Rs 429 and go up to Rs 1,099. A substantial part of Cup Cake is for the mid-price segment but it also has a small premium range and a budget range.

Spurred on by the success of Cup Cake and Mini Cup Cake, the company is all set to roll out Miss Cup Cake, inspired by the teen goddess Hannah Montana. To be launched in June 2011, it will cater to the age group 7 to 16 years. The line will mainly comprise T-shirts and jeans and also include a selection of semi formal wear.