Hits, Misses and Plans for the Future at L.A. Fashion Week
A five-pocket jeans is not going to work for a villager. Companies need to modify the product, not just ape the Western world. We need to have a connect with the consumer. You cannot just cater to the trouser-wearing women
Sanjay Shrenik Lalbhai, the 55-year-old chairman and managing director of Arvind, wore a denim trouser for his company’s 79th AGM on Friday. It was a conscious decision, meant to carry a message: “Denim doesn’t mean just jeans. Fabric cannot be associated with a form,” says the man who joined the family textile business back in 1985 and made it the world’s fifth largest denim producer.
In an exclusive interview with ET, he said the Rs. 2, 700-crore firm will soon launch denim salwar-kameez and, maybe sarees, as it bets on the domestic market to beat the global blues. Excerpts:
We have a huge domestic market. Yet, 100,000 units closed down and a million jobs were lost during the year-and-half global recession. Why?
India’s textile exports stand at $24 billion. When demand in the export market was falling 20%, the $35-billion domestic market growing at 4-5% could not compensate for the drop in exports. As a result, units in clusters like Tirupur had to operate at 40-50% capacities, and finally retrench.
With a revival in demand from the US & Europe ahead of Christmas, do you see a recovery in the Indian textiles sector?
US job losses to the tune of 10% hit the apparel sector the most, as impulse buying came to a halt. All big brands saw sales shrinking, as apparels are the first to go off the buying list. Now, with the stimulus package showing results, there is confidence in the economy. Apparel sales are picking up, but for the momentum to come in a big way, US consumers need to get back the feel-good factor. This we expect to happen around the second quarter of next year.
What could be an alternative export market for India?
Japan. It is a big market. Almost all Japanese companies have moved into China in joint ventures. Close to 80% of what they buy comes from China. But now, they have seen a cost escalation. So, they have now started coming to India.
Union textiles minister Dayanidhi Maran recently said, “Manufacture and make money in India”. Do you see that happening?
Absolutely. We are a large population, next to China. If you take Chinese industry, it is booming. Although, its export component is huge ($220 billion), the growth is now coming from domestic consumption. In India, we need to sit with the government and figure out how can we spur domestic consumption and move more goods to the organised sector from the unorganised sector.
