The Hindu Business Line : Designing textiles for the home

Sushmita Sen endorses the Carmichael House range of designer home textiles from the S. Kumar's stable. Designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee brought out a signature home textile line for Bombay Dyeing. Spaces, a Welspun brand and Portico from Creative Mobus Fabrics also work with designers to add that touch of glamour and exclusiveness to otherwise uninspiring home textiles.

This segment of the industry today offers wide scope for experimentation and an increasing number of young designers seem to be opting for a career in it. The New Manager spoke to Nien Siao, Head of the Department-Fashion Design, at the Pearl Academy of Fashion, New Delhi, on the domestic market opportunity in this segment.

Siao is a graduate in Industrial Design (Textiles) from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, and has undergone courses in `pattern making' from the National Institute of Fashion Technology, New Delhi. The Pearl Academy of Fashion, which currently has centres in New Delhi, Ludhiana, Jaipur, Chennai and UAE, plans to set up institutes in Mumbai and Kolkata. Excerpts from the interview:

What are the reasons for the growing interest among designers in the home textiles segment?

The growing interest among designers in the home textiles segment can be put down to the fact that this segment is opening up. The domestic home textile market, pegged at Rs 10,000 crore, is growing at 7 per cent annually as against one per cent for apparel. However, branded textiles cater to about five per cent of this market. Given the untapped market potential, almost all fashion designers have made forays into home fashion.

Also, in the earlier days, designers were involved in collection development — either on freelance or project basis. But today, organisations have started injecting design value additions and diversification for the domestic market too.

But why is the home textiles segment opening up now?

Today, income levels are on the rise and this has resulted in increased spending. People like to spend on themselves and their homes. When they spend on homes, they look for high quality furniture, better interiors and soft furnishings. This has resulted in various brands entering the market. The middle-level brands have started introducing designer labels, like the Bombay Dyeing tie-up with Sabyasachi.

What are the inputs that a designer brings to home textile products? Given the fact that most textile houses today use computers and technology to create designs, why is a designer's input important?

The industry produces collections that undergo parameters of costings, production, distribution and so on. However, with designer brands launching lines, textile houses have been able to reach the upper income group. Such collections are usually `limited editions' where a certain kind of finishing, texturing, print and image would be more exclusive and probably difficult to imitate.

How do design students view this segment? Is there increased interest in specialisation in this segment?

The number of students applying for careers in the home textile market has increased by 30 per cent over the last three-four years. At our institute, the BA (Hons) programme in textile design conducted at New Delhi has received an encouraging response and we plan to introduce it in Chennai soon. The response to the PG programme on `textile design — home fashion' started in Chennai, has grown four-fold .

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