Klopman, Europe’s leading brand in uniform fabrics has entered in India with its band of products. The company caters to the needs of image wear, work wear and protective wear of organizations. It also develops specialized products like fire
retardant, anti static, chemical repellent and high visibility fabrics for diverse critical applications, manufactured according to strict European norms. In India, they plan to start a production facility soon. As Holger Buele, European Director, Klopman International says, “India has a completely different structure and demand and we see huge opportunities to develop this market because the awareness of work wear and protective wear is very limited. The level where you are now is where Europe was 20 years back. But I have a feeling business in India will develop much faster than in Europe because it’s driven by companies which produce here. They have this work wear culture from Europe and bring this culture to India. India is a market where we see huge possibilities.”
Klopman
International was acquired two years ago by the M W Corp Group, a generation-next enterprise founded by Mukul Kasliwal and Warij Kasliwal. M W Corp emerged out of a comprehensive restructuring of the erstwhile S Kumars Group, founded in 1948 by two brothers, the Abhaya Kumar Kasliwal and Shambhu Kumar Kasliwal. With interests ranging from textiles to renewable energy, M W has operations across three continents. “We have always been America-driven but due to the textile crisis in the US big brands like Burlington don’t exist anymore. Still the European Klopman business was always a profitable union which was self-running. So we went from Burlington to Dominion Textiles to an Italian investment company. These companies keep their investments for just four years and then M W Corp was interested in buying us. They are now the holding company,” says Buele.
At the moment the company that produces 45 million meters of work wear fabrics -- by far the biggest volume in Europe -- is in talks with various Indian corporates to introduce work wear features in their factory floors. The focus in Indian market is for protective wear and they plan to do work wear once their Indian operations start. “We would like to create a club or joint venture to bring European garment makers together with Indian garment producers. We are trying to develop a group of vendors who meet certain standards in terms of quality, reliability etc, so that they can be partners of a German company or a British company and then we can promote it in Europe,” says Mukesh Vijaywargi, President-new markets, Klopman International. He says their European customers are coming closer to them because they are offering a service. “Vendors in India are becoming better and business is consistent. Work wear is a consistent business compared to apparel. Apparel’s business jumps from one season to another while work wear happens in continuity. Normally, every producer is interested in these kinds of orders. That is our plan which we are trying to implement during the next year.”
