"According to a report by financial services firm Avendus Capital, women’s branded apparel market is set to overtake men’s apparel segment in size by 2025 growing from Rs 99,300 crore in 2015 to Rs 2.77 trillion in 2025, making nearly 40 per cent of the market then."

According to a report by financial services firm Avendus Capital, women’s branded apparel market is set to overtake men’s apparel segment in size by 2025 growing from Rs 99,300 crore in 2015 to Rs 2.77 trillion in 2025, making nearly 40 per cent of the market then.

The report also confirms that the growth in branded apparel for women is coming from increasing artificial obsolescence. This has rapidly changed how women identify brands and maintain loyalty with them, the report said. “Brand association is more with design language today (and) style and design are the top considerations,” the report said, citing data from RedSeer Market research and consulting firm AT Kearney, which showed that most consumers counted style and design as their top or second consideration while shopping for clothes.

Abha Agarwal, director at Avendus Capital says that to create a brand, you need to have a clear positioning. One needs to focus on the designs if you want to grow eyond Rs40-50 crores in size also brands will have to carefully calibrate their throughput and their inventories to control costs, says Agarwal.

Avendus’s report estimates that as brands focus on more complex designs to cater to a demand for rapidly changing trends, 70-80 per cent of garment costs will come from the design choices a brand makes. This will also mean more inventory piled up as trends change nearly 20 per cent unsold every season and more discount sales to get rid of it.

Online (e-commerce) has become easier channel for smaller brands to grow, but anyone who wants to grow beyond a Rs40-50 crore size will have to focus on EBO (exclusive brand outlet),” she stated. EBOs are a network of physical stores that exclusively sell one brand. These are relatively more expensive than multi-brand outlets where more than one brand is sold and concepts such as shop-in-shops (space dedicated to one brand) can help reduce rental cost.

According to Agarwal brands need to be focused on strong design and setting up EBOs if they are looking for long-term growth. All major private equity deals in the apparel space in India in 2015 and 2016 involved companies with high design complexity in their products, the report said.