Mohr to push up Future Group’s stake in women’s wear

Retail pioneer and Future Group founder Kishore Biyani is going all out with his newly planned fashion entity. For starters, Future owned Indus League Clothing is all set to launch a new women’s wear brand Mohr, comprising of

Indo-western clothing directly competing with global biggies like Mango, Promod, Zara and domestic designer labels such as AND and Global Desi. This is the first big launch from Biyani's fashion stable in seven years, and is aimed at boosting his share in the fast growing women’s wear market estimated at 13 billion dollars (above Rs 70,500 crores). The company plans to open four to five exclusive brand outlets and hopes to be in 40 shop-in-shops this year. E-commerce is also being explored through various platforms.

It may be recalled that apart from restructuring and realigning the business, Future Group is also looking at introducing new brands and an e-commerce play with an aim of making Future Lifestyle & Fashion a one billion dollars (over 5,000 crores) unit by revenue within two years.

The company decided on the name Mohr since it has an Indian feel and can be understood and pronounced even internationally. And its symbol, the letter O represents the Indian peacock. “We found the women’s wear market was growing quite fast and there was space for a brand catering to working women between 25 to 35 years. Mohr caters to all lifestyle needs of a woman,” explains Rachna Aggarwal, CEO, Indus League Clothing.

The brand’s product portfolio consists of a celebration wear and elegance wear range. The products cover tops, dresses, bottom wear and kurtis under both a fusion and a western wear line. Elaborating on the collection, Aggarwal says, “Celebration wear is designed by Rahul Mishra. In fact it’s called Mohr by Rahul Mishra. And Elegance wear is a more westernised line.”

Future Group’s current fashion portfolio includes brands like John Miller, Scullers, Indigo Nation, Urbana and Jealous 21, which it acquired in 2005. The first three are said to be contributing more than Rs 200 crores each to the fashion vertical’s current topline revenue of Rs 2,800 crores annually. Indus-League and Fashion brands will move from Future Ventures to Future Lifestyle & Fashion after the restructuring.