Vitamins: Plans first flagship in Mumbai this May

Sangam Dresses known for its girls wear brand Vitamins launched in 2000 is looking at launching its flagship store in Mumbai this May. Also on the anvil is shifting to a factory of 33,000 sq. ft. in a year’s time, which would triple company’s

production capacity from the current 4,000 pieces a day. Retail network expansion is also being planned to capture the untapped areas apart from opening its own stores. As Ojas Nishar, Director, Sangam Dresses elaborates, “By May 2012 we are launching our flagship in Mumbai, spread over 1,000 sq. ft. area. After testing waters, we will open six more stores at one go by next financial year.”

‘ Talking about the product profile, Nishar says, “We cater to girls’ upto four years, and between 5 to 14 years. We have separate collections for each age group that includes textile tops, knitted tops, denims, cotton pants, and corduroy pants for every season.” For summer this year, the brand has introduced harems in prints and knits, sleeveless tops, spaghetti tops in knits. There are fabric variations in knits with bright colors. Capris, hot shorts and skirts in denim and cotton along with a range of pedal pushers, shrugs, jumpers, leggings, A-line or one-piece dresses and tunics are part of the line. The collection also features accessories like hair bands, bags, belts, socks, scarves, inner wear, to which it plans to add shoes in a year.

Highlighting the features of the SS’ 12 collections, Nishar said, “For this spring/summer, we have five to six stories: Rio Carnival, Hawaian Bloom, Sydney Slush, Bahama Breeze and Fluro Fun,” these have been named after various places across the globe.

Currently, the brand is present in about 400 MBOs all over India except the Northeast. “In Mumbai, we directly deal with MBOs. For other areas we have distributors and marketing agents. We have presence in some regional large format stores like Biglife Ritu Wear, Chunmun, Kapsons, Sand and Max. At the national level, we are with Globus. We are in discussions with Shoppers Stop, Central and Lifestyle to expand our reach,” he informs. For EBOs, the brand has a tie-up with Ruff Kids, where the boys’ segment is stocked with Ruff and the girls’ segment has Vitamins collection. At the moment the brand wants to focus on the markets in the Northeast, and central India like MP, Jharkhand. On the export front, it is looking at venturing into UAE and Africa.

Commenting on the junior wear category in India that is seeing a flux of brands vying to capture the market that is largely ruled by the unorganized players, Nishar says, “The junior wear market is a growing on and with people becoming fashion, brand and quality conscious, it is attracting international brands. However, it is a difficult market to get into since margins are very low”.