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For long, consumers were seeing them in black and blue. Not any more.
Denims are still the hot favourite, but young India is lapping them up, slowly but surely, in all colours — from lemon yellow and burnt orange to mint green and soft lavender. “When I can have baby pink and parrot green jeans, why should I settle for boring blue,” asks 23-year-old Nisha Pandey, a freelance journalist.
It is not the women alone, as one can spot several young men along the shopping corridors of Delhi’s Janpath (a great bargain hunting ground) or the Express Avenue Mall in Chennai experimenting with bold colours. Coloured denims and trousers, referred to by the industry as bottom-wear, were a rage in the 1950s, just before the hippie fashion era. It is back in vogue, especially in the western world. India was exposed to specks of this fad last season with the appearance of colourful shorts on retail shelves, explains Hanif Sattar, Director of apparel brand Basics. Are retailers in India aggressively promoting a global trend or is the gap between international and Indian fashion closing? Maybe a bit of both, but it does seem the fashion from Bollywood and Tollywood screens has jumped right into people’s wardrobes, with retailers such as Basics, Derby Clothing, Benetton and Jealous 21 stoking the steam.
“Nobody wants to dress old today. Also, frankly, how many more blues and blacks can one buy,” asks Suhail Sattar, Director, Basics, which has come out with an ‘un-camouflage’ ad campaign, urging consumers to stand out in coloured bottom-wear.
Colours are popular not just in value-brands and thrifty street fashion, but also in the luxury segment.
Charu Sachdev, CEO, TSG International, which retails brands such as Yves Saint Laurent, Victoria Beckham, Alexander McQueen, Celine, Rag & Bone, Alice + Olivia, Halston Heritage, Herve Leger, Stella McCartney, says coloured denims are flying off the shelf faster than one thought. Most of these brands are priced over Rs 8,000 a pair but Sachdev sees a strong demand for colours such as canary yellow, fuchsia, soft lavender, burnt orange and ultramarine.
At IML Jeans, a premium bespoke jeans manufacturing firm, nearly 50 per cent of business comes from coloured denims. Aditya Singhal, CEO, says manufacturing coloured denims is a challenge in India as volumes are still not that big. So, IML buys unbleached denims, which are then dyed using imported chemicals. “Coloured denims have been in existence in Europe and other parts of the globe for some time now. But one of the reasons why it is finding takers in India is because it blends beautifully with Indian garments,” explains Singhal.
> swetha.kannan@thehindu.co.in
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