IFF 2015: Creating New Ideas for Catalysing Fashion & Lifestyle Consumption

On the day one of India Fashion Forum 2015 a panel of experts Amit Maheshwari, Head-Fashion Business, Snapdeal; Narendra Kumar, Fashion Designer & Consultant; Gaurav Mahajan, President, Group Apparel, Raymond; Vishal Trehan, Country Head, Forever New; Dilip Kapur, President, Hidesign; and Alok Dwivedi, Arvind Textiles et al discussed the idea Creating New Ideas for Catalysing Fashion & Lifestyle Consumption.
The session moderator Shaili Chopra, a well-known TV presenter, commenced the conference and shared “The rise of the great fashion aware consumer is upon us and this growth will continue for the next several years only if we are able to leverage the factors, through design, marketing, innovation, store experiences, omni-channel, digital experiences and technical evolution in a complete manner.”
The lead presenter Ankur Bisen, Head of Retail Practice, Technopak talked about the retail innovations in which he covered the following points-changing roles of e-commerce and brick and mortar stores, customization according to customers need, experiential retailing, online-offline mash-up and technological interventions.
He also talked about the present scenario of retail in Indian context. He said that,” India is not different in adopting new technologies as evident by today’s e-commerce boom. One has to re-think about mass fashion, embrace online-offline mash-up and offer many exciting solutions to overcome conventional challenges.”
Narendra Kumar, Fashion Designer & Consultant focused on fashion with functionality. According to him, “Digital age has given us an opportunity to produce innovative products in short time and hence there is a buzz about digital technology.” Kumar answered the question of who will define the future of fashion by saying that, “In 80’s fashion designers, in 90’s fashion brands and today the customers credibility and confidence can be attributed to decide the future of fashion.”
Gaurav Mahajan, President, Group Apparel, Raymond addressed the session by saying that,” Technology is the means to an end.” According to him,” today customers expect brands to be traditional and technogically well-versed at the same time. He concluded by saying that,” Creativity is the key to differentiation and there is an enormous opportunity for the new emerging Indian brands and it is happening at an exponential rate.”
Vishal Trehan, Country head, Forever New, said that.”Today people are looking for freshness and they are more aware because of social media. So their fear is to keep the freshness of the store; for which they launch new stories every month.  According to him, “Consumer demand is never easy and never will be. To manage it, one has to go back to basics, re-invent in store experience and optimize using forward looking goals.”
Dilip Kapur, President, Hidesign, stated that,” Scale should not determine growth. If you keep reflecting your identity, customer will come again. He also said that,” Design comes out of culture and India has a lot of potential. But due to lack of infrastructure, people are not coming up.”
Alok Dwivedi of Arvind Textiles continued by saying that,” In India, there are not many youth oriented brands but it has more of youth population.  Thus the brands need to stick to generations and have a basic idea about their roots.”
The speakers answered the questions asked by the audience and they concluded the session by saying what determines their fashion philosophies which included keeping things simple, innovation, consumer and consumer insights.