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Nina Varghese

Hangers being manufactured at Mainetti's production facility in Chennai. — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , Aug. 14

MAINETTI, one of the world's better known garment hanger brands, plans to set up its second facility in India, according to Mr Michael Stakol, Group Chief Executive, Mainetti, who was here to inaugurate the company's manufacturing unit.

The company has had a presence in India for the last five years through a joint venture. In the last year the company decided to set up its own facility and invested $1 million in the factory. The factory is located in Chennai's industrial suburb of Ambattur, which is 100 per cent owned by Mainetti and supplies retail brands such as Wal Mart, Mother Care, Marks and Spencer, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Little Woods, Group Coin, and Next. The unit has the capacity to manufacture 60 million hangers a year, Mr Stakol said. The factory in Chennai supplies around 50 per cent of its total production to garment manufacturers in the North and the rest in the southern region.

When garment manufacturing moved away from America and Europe to offshore sites in Asia and the Mediterranean basin, Mr Stakol said that Mainetti made a conscious decision to set up manufacturing units near the garment manufacturing centres. He said that this was one of the characteristics that differentiated Mainetti from its competitors. He said that the main reasons for this were that hangers did not travel well. Some of the hangers, especially for coats, are bulky and would fit only 100 to a box while the smaller sleeker ones would fit 600 to a box, he said.

He said that Mainetti was one of the first companies to come out with the garment on hanger (GoH) programme. Garments are put on the hanger before it is shipped out from the factory, which helps the retailer pack the consignment and put the garments up for display almost immediately. The range of hangers include ones form skirts, trousers, tops, dresses, outerwear, lingerie, knitwear and children's wear. The company also manufactures hangers for gloves, scarves, belts and footwear.

The total size of the organised hanger market is around 10 billion and the top three have 70 per cent of the market with Mainetti in the second place, after A&E, Mr Stakol said.

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