Daniel Hechter: To offer French fashion for Indian women

Daniel Hechter the French lifestyle brand that revolutionized the textile industry with its ready to wear clothing now plans woo Indian women as it plans to extend its portfolio to the women’s category. The brand aimed at the fashion savvy

men was launched in India in 2009 by Indus League Clothing. Sujatha Nandan, Chief Brand Manager for Daniel Hechter in India under the Bangalore-based Indus League Clothing Company explains, “Since the time Daniel Hechter started operations in India, it has successfully produced highly creative collections and reflected a fashionable lifestyle not just aimed at the social elite.” It aims to be rupees one billion brand in the next two to three years.

The brand’s products include classic shirts and limited edition shirts made from imported Italian fabrics, T-shirts ranging between Rs 1,299 to Rs 1,999 and sweat shirts priced between Rs 2199 to Rs 2699 etc. The entire lifestyle range is further supplemented by accessories like belts, ties, socks, cufflinks, stoles, mufflers and caps costing between Rs 999 to Rs 6,999. The brand’s collection is being retailed through six EBOs and 44 shop-in-shops. The plans is that in the next two years it will have at least 10 EBOs and extend its footprint to 10 other shop-in-shops which would include key MBOs and national chain stores.

The new autumn/winter range of Daniel Hechter is broadly classified into three collections, Original Hechter, Classic with a twist and Sportswear or casual wear with sporty elegance. The Original Hechter collection is a preamble to the grand 50th anniversary celebration of the brand in the year 2012, and highlights the distinct signs of recognition of the brand like 1962-the year of establishment, Hechter –the name of the founder designer and the un-mistakable hash lines which is the brand logo.

The Sports or casualwear with a sporty elegance includes a range of casual shirts in winter hues, indigo dyed shirts, pima jersey T-shirts, denims, washed casual trousers, hoodies, casual jackets, cotton and merino wool sweaters, stoles, caps and mufflers. And Classic with a twist consists of the limited edition shirts made from Italian fabrics; the other classic shirts come with a twist either in terms of colors or styling elements. The cotton yarn dyed trousers, polyviscose and polywool trousers form part of the formal trousers range. The suits and jackets are in polyviscose, polywool and 100 per cent virgin wool, supplemented with accessories like leather belt, silk ties, cufflinks and socks.

Talking about the impact of excise duty, Nandan says, “Excise duty was introduced at a time when cotton prices were at its peak. It was therefore not possible to pass on completely the burden of both the costs to the consumer, though part of it definitely had an impact on the MRP. But on the other hand, consumers responded normally when they saw ‘value for money’ in the product.”
On FDI in retail, she says, “While there will be competition indeed, FDI will also improve consumer’s awareness and provide better opportunities and reasons for strong and successful brands to exist.”