For the Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, designing for Western and Indian retailers reminds him of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale, ‘‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.’’
Mr. Mukherjee, whose Sabyasachi Couture label has had some measure of success in his homeland, was delighted to have his styles picked up by the high-end London retailer Browns in 2005. But he was equally unhappy when the store dropped him two seasons later, saying that he had not produced a winter selection, something few Indian designers do, and that he had used the same color palette (a musty brown) for two collections.
“You need to be super organized to be able to handle both worlds,’’ said Mr. Mukherjee, adding that being sold at Browns, even briefly, was ‘‘one of the best things that happened in my international career.’’
Rajesh Pratap Singh, another Indian designer, had a similar experience when the Parisian concept store Colette carried his spring 2007 styles.
“We sold Rajesh Pratap Singh very well the first time we introduced his collection because it was very delicate,” said Sarah Lerfel, Colette’s creative director. But “we couldn’t work more than two seasons because his collection didn’t evolve enough for us.”
Fashion experts say such mishaps are not uncommon when designers reach beyond their own borders — but that the mismatch of effort and need are particularly noticeable when it comes to the insulated Indian fashion world.
Unlike most of their international counterparts, Indian designers have had little economic need to venture overseas. India has a giant apparel industry that provides the traditional clothing its 1.1 billion people generally want for daily wear as well as the elaborate outfits that appear at special events, especially wedding celebrations.
According to a recent study by the professional services firm KPMG India, the country’s apparel market is expected to reach $35.8 billion in sales this year — actually putting it on par with the global designer market, which KPMG valued at $35 billion last year. (Indian designers account for $50 million to $250 million of that global designer market, or less than 1 percent, according to Kaushik Muralidharan of KPMG.)
“The Western market is definitely about aspiration for our designers,” said Rathi Jah, founder of India’s leading fashion school, the National Institute of Fashion Technology. “It is not necessarily a market that gives them their bread and butter.”
But with Western brands beginning to eat into domestic revenues, and the clock of globalization ticking quietly in the background, India designers are looking to the West — and finding that, in addition to their local style sensibilities, their lack of Western-style business structure and of financial support is hampering their efforts.
For example, Ms. Jah noted, most Indian designers do not have brand managers, sales agents or publicists.
“In India, designers are not very in tune with the international market,” said Manish Arora, the New Delhi-based designer who is generally acknowledged to have the highest Western profile among his contemporaries. “To penetrate the international market, designers need to understand it. This includes creating something new each season. They often keep the same silhouettes so the collections don’t look different. Therefore, they might sell one season and not the next.”
Shwetal Patel, sales manager for the Irish handbag designer Pauric Sweeney, recalls Mr. Arora’s desire to learn about the Western fashion industry during an early trip to London. “He was really curious and quick to pick up on how things are done,” said Mr. Patel.
Today, his collections are sold at stores like Le Bon Marché and Galeries Lafayette in Paris and Harrods in London, in some cases alongside the work of Anglo-Indian designers like Naeem Khan, who was born in India and is based in New York; Ashish Gupta of London and Liaqat Rasul, born in Pakistan and raised in Wales.
With a lack of financial backing from the government and no major fashion groups to support emerging talents, something many of their counterparts in the West rely upon, the new generation of Indian designers has had to finance their companies themselves or find their own backers.
Mr. Mukherjee, for example, started his label with a secondhand sewing machine and £200, or $290, that he borrowed from his sister. He says his annual sales now are 130 million rupees, or about $2.5 million. Mr. Arora funded his business, at least in part, through collaborations with global brands like Reebok, Swatch, MAC, Swarovski and Walt Disney.
Other kinds of government support for fashion have been available. The Fashion Design Council of India, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, has efforts ranging from a designer showcase in the Middle East to the promotion of Indian designers in Hong Kong. Also, it is pushing to bring more Japanese buyers to India’s two major fashion weeks, one in New Delhi, March 18 to 23, and one in Mumbai, scheduled March 27 to 31.
Designers, however, want more help. “Indian designers have to do everything on their own,” Mr. Mukherjee said. “The Indian government and the Indian corporate sector have still not fully recognized the potential of Indian designers’ labels when it comes to financing production and export to the West.”
As a result, some designers last October created their own organization, the Fashion Foundation of India, to grow the industry in India as well as abroad.
Lorenzo Hadar, the owner of the H. Lorenzo boutiques in Los Angeles, which stock Mr. Singh’s and Mr. Arora’s designs, said Indian collections already have shown a better sense of the Western market in the last two seasons.
‘‘The young ones are willing to change,’’ said Mr. Hadar. ‘‘These designers are amazing with fabric, textiles and embroidery. They are willing to work 18 hours a day. They do everything so inexpensively.
‘‘They have everything they need to make it.”
