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Birla Cellulose, part of Aditya Birla Group’s Grasim Industries, is looking to expand the reach of its Liva brand of viscose fabric.
The company is planning more partnerships with apparel-makers and will look to expand the range offerings to include menswear.
According to Manohar Samuel, President - Marketing and Business Development, Birla Cellulose, customer awareness is being built for better acceptability of the offerings.
Liva caters to the B2B segment, which means that it supplies fabric through accredited value chain-partners to different apparel-makers. The focus is mostly on women’s wear as of now.
Birla Cellulose launched Liva as a branded viscose fabric in India, in 2015.
FBB (Fashion at Big Bazaar), brands of Madura Fashion and Lifestyle, Lifestyle Stores and Shoppers Stop carry the ‘Liva tag’ on their apparel brands. It has also tied up with BIBA, 109F, Fusion Beat, among others.
International apparel brands — such as Marks & Spencer, Zara and H&M — who have partnered with Birla Cellulose, however, do not carry the Liva tag on their apparels.
“We are now focussing more on tie-ups for Liva. Currently, it is for women’s wear. But we will explore men’s apparel tie-ups too. Some of the brands are already using viscose fabric in men’s wear, but they are yet to co-brand it with Liva,” Samuel told BusinessLine .
Partnership is mostly of two types — co-branding, where it has some 34-odd partners (retail brands); and through Liva Accredited Partners Forum (LAPF), for manufacturing of fabric.
According to Samuel, Birla Cellulose will also look to slowly expand into new categories.
The firm may expand offerings into home décor, where viscose rayon finds use.
Grasim currently has four fibre plants in India — one each in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka and two in Gujarat — and a pulp unit in Karnataka.
Outside India, it has three fibre plants — one each in Indonesia, Thailand and China — and pulp units in Canada and Sweden.
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