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Sudha Menon

Pune , February 21

GENTLEMEN with a yen for good clothes can now look forward to shopping for their smart threads at the neighbourhood multi-brand store instead of winging it overseas, with Savile Row, one of the world's best-known menswear brands, now launching its range in India in collaboration with Forbes Gokak Ltd.

Come April and the company, which is best-known for its customised suits and shirts, will launch a range of shirts, trousers and ties in the country, initially through multi-brand stores across 10 locations.

The next step in the brand's evolution in India will be some nine months later, when its licensee, Forbes Gokak, will set up standalone brand stores that will showcase and sell its top-of-the-line products.

"The 3-4 standalone brand stores will be where we plan to launch our made-to-measure suits and shirts," Mr Jeffrey Doltis, Managing Director, The Savile Row Co, told Business Line.

For the uninitiated, the Savile Row Co is one of the fashion destinations for some of the world's best-known personalities for whom a visit to the couturier is a must, especially when they are in the company's hometown, London.

Ask for his client list, though, and all one can get out of Mr Doltis is a smile and, "The relationship between a man and his tailor is sacrosanct in our business."

The company's strategy in India, meanwhile, will be to grow the brand largely through its worldwide "luxury clothes at affordable prices" positioning, which will offer stiff competition in the premium officewear category.

Forbes Gokak has extensive interests in textiles and the retail business is an added advantage for the company.

Its upmarket brands division is also, incidentally, the name behind the entry of luxury brand, Daks, into India.

The Indian operations, meanwhile, could also play a major role in Savile Row's global operations, with Mr Doltis maintaining that the company will gradually shift a proportion of its production of shirts out of the UK into India, beginning 2006.

The company manufactures an estimated 3,50,000 shirts annually but rising labour costs now make it unviable for it to continue that level of production out of the home base, according to Mr Doltis.

"We will never phase out production in the UK, but will have to outsource production, initially, of shirts to India."

The Indian operations will kick off with the company launching a range of shirts (beginning at Rs 600), trousers (over Rs 900), and silk ties (starting at Rs 650).

"India is by far the most exciting market for us at this moment. The country has a huge, upwardly mobile middle-class with aspirations to a better lifestyle.

"Combine this with the fact that the historical connection between the two countries gives it the advantage of a high brand recall in the Indian mind and we have a winning proposition on hand."

He added: "By end-2006 we hope to do business worth $5 million in India."

The foray into the Indian market may well prove to be yet another step into the company's quest to establish itself in large markets across the globe.

With operations in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the US, and Australia among others, the company has a global turnover of $75,000,000.

Japan has till now proved to be its most successful venture outside the UK, grossing it business worth £40 million annually, as against the £27 million that it does in the UK.

"But now that we are in India, we hope that it can beat even Japan in sales," said Mr Doltis, who added that a high-wattage print advertisement campaign will announce the brand's entry into India.

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Savile Row coming, in pact with Forbes Gokak

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