The growing emphasis on quality over quantity is boosting demand for customized fashion in India. With people buying less, their interest in off-the-rack clothes is weaning, feels designer Payal Singhal who offers customized services across all her product lines including bridal, prêt, fusion, menswear, kids wear and accessories.

Increasing customization of bridal wear

In India, the term customized or bespoke fashion has become synonymous with bridal wear. Hence, designer Ritu Kumar recently reintroduced her bespoke bridal services. Steeped in India’s rich textile history, the brand’s designs will henceforth be customized according to customers’ needs. Designer Anavila Misra, best known for her collectible saris, aims to offer less but well-crafted designs. Singhal too will allow her clients to mix and match clothes by providing them with an access to her past collections. Technologies like 3D renditions, archiving, virtual trials and e-commerce will help these designers offer customers a seamless shopping experience.

Offering customized luxury

The post pandemic world will also accelerate adoption of customization by homegrown prêt labels like resort and lounge wear brand Verandah. The zero-waste brand is known for making each of its order from scratch. Over the last eight years, the brand has customized multiple people for several of its clients. Anjali Patel Mehta, Founder and Creative Director, believes henceforth there will be more demand for special, well-cut and transitional pieces that last long. In order to cut waste, shoppers will invest more in the creation of their outfits. Customization will also help brands tackle the problem of overproduction. They will be able to replace the old theory of ‘See now, buy now’ with wait and wear’. With customization, consumers will also able to build a collection that they have an emotional connect with and savor every minute of the experience.

The nationwide lockdown being implemented to curb COVID-19 spread has hit Indian fashion and apparel sector hard with sales recovering just 35 per cent that of January levels. Latest Redseer Consulting data reveals, fashion sales in January stood at $7 billion, or $85 billion annualized with the steepest dip reported in April when sales reached only 10 per cent of January levels. Sales by offline retailers, including those from organized brick-and-mortar stores, fell around 4 per cent to 88 per cent by mid-June. Online retailers also failed to match pre-COVID-19 levels even though their sales increased 11 per cent over the last six months.

Demand to revive by festive season

The fashion industry can only hope to bounce back around the upcoming festive season, says the chief executive of a top fashion brand. According to him, the industry’s reliance on a few online channels is not expected to bring the desired results. Cut back on spending on non-essential items may also lead to weaker sales, say analysts. More than 50 per cent consumers plan to cut down on their discretionary purchases, including fashion, in the next six months, opines Mrigank Gutgutia, Director, Redseer Consulting and Research.

Though brands are taking several measures to woo consumers, these have failed to lift demand says Harminder Sahni, Founder and Managing Director, Wazir Advisors. According to him, sales are unlikely to recover for the entire year as COVID-19 cases are rising every day.

Safety protocol for apparel retailers

Retailers and brands are seeking a standardized safety protocol for apparel to boost sales, says Arvind Mediratta, Chairperson, Retail and Internal Trade Committee, FICCI. This protocol will help retailers by certifying their apparels as safe for consumers.

These retailers are also employing disabling features like cash on delivery which are helping them to control returns and exchanges by 50 per cent. However, they need to build virtual trial rooms to help customers check how the cloth looks on them, views Rameswar Misra, Cofounder, Turms.

Post pandemic, fashion and apparel has become one of the fastest selling categories online. Held last month, Myntra’s flagship sale event recorded about 3.5 million customers with more than 10 million items being sold in just four days. Even though customers are currently stocking essentials, they will get back to shopping apparels, once they get back to work, believes Abhishek Ganguly, Managing Director, Puma India. And this will lead to a growth in offline sales as was evident from the recent pick up in traffic at the newly reopened stores.

The online edition of India’s biggest garment fair for domestic garment manufacturers will be organized from September 02-11, 2020.

As per the Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI), organizer of the show, the 71st edition of National Garment Fair (NGF) is re-evolved and re-invented to keep industry ahead of fashion trends and overall business opportunities.

To make the show successful, CMAI is approaching prospective participants effectively through various ways. The show used to take place twice a year in January and July. The July edition of the event used to take place in the first or the second week of the month. The 4-day-long July edition last year had over 1,000 exhibitors from across India and around 40,000 visitors including retailers, corporate buyers, wholesalers, agents, distributors, etc. visited it.

In India, so far in the textile and garment industry, Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) has organised two virtual sourcing shows but they were mainly for export. It will be interesting to see how the domestic market gains from a virtual show.

With consumers venturing out more during weekdays and office hours, the trend of weekend shopping has shrunk to a third. This change is mainly a result of closure of multiplexes, fear of visiting the malls during weekends and a surge in online shopping, view experts.

According to Devendra Chawla, Managing Director, Spencer’s Retail, shopping which earlier used to be a family activity is now largely done by a single member of the family whereby the weekend skew has come down. Sundays, which earlier generated the highest sales, is now even lower than weekdays, says J Suresh, CEO, Arvind Fashions which sells brands such as Calvin Klein, Gap and US Polo Assn.

Similar shopping trends are seen for products like appliances, laptops and smartphones which are currently in high demand as consumers automate daily chores or to aid work and study from home. Ritesh Ghosal, Chief Marketing Officer, Croma adds, sales, which used to be the highest during the pre-COVID period, has now spread more evenly over the entire day.

Consumers are now coming even during the lean hours like early morning or afternoon to avoid crowds, queues outside stores and since there is night curfew in several places.

Neville Noronha, Managing Director, Avenue Supermarts that runs DMart recommends extending shopping hours on week days for essential retailers. This will help them to manage social distancing significantly better, he said.

The Work from Home trend has boosted the sales of PJ’s in India with knitwear exporters receiving advance payments from European buyers to replenish their stocks for the basic clothing

Demand for daily essential clothing is more from Europe, which has opened up for a long time. There is very good export demand for kids wear, night wear and inner wear. The retail stores are running low on stock demand for fast fashion clothing is still sluggish, said Ashok Arul, CMO, SCM garments, an exporter to leading retail stores of Europe and US.

Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, which exported knitted garments worth about Rs 30,000 core the previous fiscal, has started getting good export business. Raja Shanmugam, president, Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA) noted a growing demand for night wear, children wear and inner wear.