UV&W: To launch premium men’s organic innerwear

Known for its organic clothing for men, UV&W from Ludhiana-based Venus Group of Clothing is planning to venture into premium men’s innerwear segment with an organic innerwear range. As Rajat Misra, Vice President-Marketing and Designing,

UV&W explains, “Soon we are planning to launch an innerwear line for men in the premium segment. It will be developed in organic cotton. We will be launching three basic styles in undergarment and four styles in vests. We will look at spreading this product only at premium counters so if we have the retail network of 900 MBOs then I am looking at 300-350 counters only for spreading my new men’s innerwear range.”

UV&W’s product range consists of knitted products. It covers outer wear like T-shirts, sweat shirts, cotton sweaters, lowers and bermudas for men. “We have under garments and thermals for the entire family. In ladies wear, we offer tops, lounge wear, sweat shirts, lowers and capris and for new born babies make inner wear, nappies, tops, rompers, leggings along with vests and briefs and thermal wear. For boys it’s limited to innerwear and thermal wear,” Misra informs.

UV&W is exclusively engaged in the marketing of certified organic cotton clothing and has the distinction of being the first to do so in India when it opened three outlets in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar in 2008. Since then it has expanded its retail operations to Chandigarh, Zirakpur, Ghaziabad, New Delhi, Jaipur and Baroda and Yamuna Nagar. The UV&W collection is available in 12 EBOS, mostly in Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi NCR, Jaipur and Vadodara in Gujarat. But the major revenue is earned through over 900 MBOs. “So far we have not introduced our product in LFS. We are looking at adding another 250 MBOs to our existing stores in the coming year along with LFS entry. But that will be done only when we have completed the MBO route and are able to add more production capacities. We also export organic cotton clothing to major retail chains like Wal-Mart in the US, Canada and Mexico and Carrefour in France. The products are available on our website, where the supply chain is being handled by us. We will soon look at third party tie-ups,” Misra says elaborating on his retail plans for the future.

Commenting on why they opted for organic clothing, Misra says, “UV&W stands for unique values and wears. The reason for launching organic clothing was our understanding that there is a great future for health oriented products as we are surrounded by pollution, toxicants everywhere and something/someone should address this issue. This provided a great opportunity and challenge to us. Since nobody else at that time was selling organic clothing in India we could have the first mover advantage.”

Venus Garments has recorded an exponential compounded growth of 48 per cent over the last three years. Earlier this year, it was conferred with the Dun & Bradstreet – ECGC Indian Exporters Excellence Award as Top Exporter in the readymade garments sector under the ‘Medium Exporters’ category. It was also honored by the world mass marketing retail giant Wal-Mart with the ‘Supplier of the Year 2007’ award. AEPC awarded Venus for showing 3rd highest growth rate in its industry. Last year, DHL quoted Jain as the ‘Most Dynamic Entrepreneur’.

“My philosophy is to use the medium of fashion to bring about awareness and action for achieving the objective of a healthier environment through clothing,” Misra sums up.