M&W to launch new products to woo young India

As the mercury continues to dip, M&W brand of jackets and T-shirt from Vallabh Knits is cashing in on spiraling demand in the cold season. M&W which stands for ‘Men and Women’ was registered around 15 years ago although the brand has started

selling only for the last one year. Earlier specializing in knitted fabrics, the company has now ventured into apparel segments such as sweat shirt kurtis, woolen kurtis and jackets over the last one year. It has also launched a successful line of T-shirts with plans to manufacture around five lakh pieces for the coming summer. This is a 100 per cent growth in the T-shirt segment alone.

With a current turnover of Rs 22 crores, the company is looking at around Rs 35 crores by March 2012. M&W product range is geared towards a 60 per cent summer and 40 per cent winter. The brand specializes in making a trendy line of jackets for young people in a wholesale affordable range.


“These days there is mix and match and we have put padding on the shoulders and cuts on the back in order to put the fashion of jackets into blazers. Everybody works very hard on jacket samples. That’s why production is very low and that’s why good brands don’t have lots of jackets with them. We made around 20,000 pieces,” says Sanjeev Jakhar, Unit Head of Vallabh Knits.

“Young people form 50 to 60 per cent of customers in the market. And they are basically looking for fashion products specifically jackets or sweat shirts but not pullovers. So sale of jackets is higher than that of cardigans. And there is an interlinking between the two from manufacturing to marketing to selling,” he says.

M&W has 22 distributors all over India and are also present in around 1,500 MBOs across India. It has four exclusive outlets run through the franchise mode, all in Ludhiana. It does not tap large formats since their payments are slow but plans to further expand through the franchisee route. The company exports to Europe under their buyers’ brand name and to the Middle East it supplies striper T-shirts under their own brand name.

This summer, the company will be launching a new range of capris, Bermudas, lowers in exclusive pouches, in 15 to 20 styles. It will also be launching two-by-two lycra pajamas for women in around 35 colors. There are also plans for expansion of its product range in different knits like heavy jacquards, light weight jacquards and different kinds of knits in T-shirts.

On the industry Jakhar says, “Manufacturers all over India should come under one umbrella, since this is a small scale industry. There are thousands of people associated with the industry. They should come together on one platform so that our grievances can be heard by the government, because its policies do not favor the business, at least in Punjab. Right now woven labels have their own association and manufacturers have their own association and so on. They should come on a common platform so that their problems can be heard.”