Apparel Online India Magazine February 1st Issue 2019 | Page 32

FASHION BUSINESS EXPERT’S OPINION WE ALL HAVE OUR OWN VERSIONS OF F A S H I O N L U X U R Y. B U T, W H A T I S T R U E ‘LUXURY’? The state of luxury fashion today is a state of identity crisis. While sneakers, logo T-shirts and hoodies have profitably entered the luxury scenario since the past few seasons, the old school houses of the luxury business are quietly maintaining their status of what is defined as ‘true luxury’ since centuries. Also, luxury in the Indian market is significantly different from luxury in the West. Somewhere along the fashion curve over decades and the launch of new entrants in the industry across the fashion globe, there have been surging headlines questioning the real meaning of ‘luxury’ and its fate in times to come. To understand it better, we are in conversation with luxury industry professional Saurabh Banka, an alumni of NIFT, New Delhi and Founder of LAÏTEworks. S aurabh Banka graduated from NIFT Fashion Design Course in 2007 following which he persuaded a Masters Course from IFM (Institut Français de la Mode), Paris in 2008-09. For a few years, he worked as an embroidery designer for a brand called Rue du Mail. The doors of the luxury industry opened for him through the retail industry when he started working for Prada as their sales associate in 2015. In 2016, Banka launched a brand of hand-embroidered scarves and accessories called LAÏTEworks. This brand combines design inspirations from France and handcrafted skills from India. According to him, while he was working as an embroidery designer for Rue du Mail, he realised that most of the couture houses or design houses of Paris get their embroideries done from India as Indian embroidery is rich and diverse. Therefore, it was a conscious decision on his part to promote the embroideries and its craftsmen from India. LAÏTEworks as a brand participates in Maison&Objet, Paris and currently retails from several stores in Italy, France, Switzerland, United States and Japan. How would you define ‘Luxury’? Luxury Brand is like a five- star rating for hotels. It’s like Rolls Royce amongst the cars; flying business class in flights. 32 Apparel Online India | FEBRUARY 1-15, 2019 | www.apparelresources.com Everything has to be on the top of the line – the products, the quality, the price, the stores, the services and the ambience. Clients queue up an hour before the store opens its doors, in order to buy bags worth € 5,000 and above. Such a brand is a luxury brand. A single store making an average of € 150,000 on a weekend is called a ‘Luxury Store’. A dress flown from Paris to London for a client, because the client wants to buy it and it is the last dress in the collection, is what can be termed as ‘luxury’.‘Luxury’ is also the possibility to get certain products/ services custom-made. It can also be related to providing after-sales services for the products bought in recent years.