Van Heusen to launch Vdot Jeans

India’s premium lifestyle brand Van Heusen, is planning to launch Vdot Jeans in the summer of 2010. This contemporary denim line is aimed at the uber-confident young Indian. “Through this label we will be rolling out casual shirts for youngsters. Vdot Jeans will be focusing on the

young generation and eventually the range will encompass everything from party wear to casuals,” says Sheetal Mehta, COO, Van Heusen. Mehta feels, since casuals are a big play these days, Vdot Jeans will be able to cater to the casual slot since it’s a denim-based range. It may be noted that Van Heusen already has a label called Vdot. This is formal range for men and is aimed at the well-heeled young Indian male.

That’s not all; Van Heusen is also launching a new line of formal shirts called Trend. “These stylish, slim shirts are targeted at the young office executive who finds a typical shirt a little boring,” Mehta explains. “This category used to be earlier catered to by the semi-formal range of shirts. But now that range does not exist,” Mehta adds. Trend will be in the premium range and Van Heusen is signing up an IPL team to launch it.
Van Heusen, the Rs 225-crore brand from the Aditya Birla Nuvo group, was launched 15 years ago, as a premium formal wear range for men. It has undergone many stages of evolution since then and now the brand even has formal women’s wear in its range.

Mehta is of the opinion that as fashion evolves, the shirts category, where Van Heusen is one of the big players, will face pressure from T-shirts and woven and knitted tops. “In the summer of 2009, we sold one lakh T-shirts and in 2010, we are aiming to sell three lakh T-shirts. And in 2011, we should be able to sell 5 lakh,” he says. The challenge is to keep the brand appeal among youngsters and compete with the international premium brands.

Inspite of a slowdown, Van Heusen has continued its aggressive marketing. They are aiming to open another 25 exclusive brand outlets in the next four months, which is almost one store every week. The brand that claims to sell two million shirts a year touched Rs 400 crore in retail sales for the year ending March 2010.