Over 400 brands and companies, 200+ speakers to converge at India Fashion Forum 2023
Bengaluru: India’s largest fashion intelligence event, India Fashion Forum (IFF) is back with its 22nd edition on 28 February and 1 March at the Conrad Hotel, Bengaluru. This year’s theme is Decoding the DNA of profitability: Growth Defined by Value Creation’. This time, IFF will be bigger, in line with the industry trends, bringing in players from newer categories, enlarging its footprint in the fashion retail space, as well as participation from delegates from the UK and Northern Ireland representing brands such as Lush, Benny Hancock, Jennifer Young, to name a few.
Alongside a powerful conference, the two-day event will offer several compelling attendee experiences, including a wide-ranging exhibition featuring fashion and retail innovation, tech, retail support and real estate majors. In addition, multiple show highlights promise to deliver outstanding experiences and value for exhibitors, speakers and attendees.
Shailesh Chaturvedi, managing director and chief executive officer, Arvind Fashions Ltd, and Chairman, IFF 2023 says, “India has a highly fragmented fashion industry with very few 1000 Cr+ brands, indicating a massive opportunity to build brands at scale. However, scale should not come at the expense of profitability. The focus of IFF 2023, therefore, will be to present some exciting case studies on the buildup of large scale, profitable businesses which have created huge value.”
“The 2023 edition of India Fashion Forum truly reflects the growing maturity of Indian fashion consumers and businesses, with powerful discussions and explorations on responsible fashion creation, building brands that benefit people and societies, and nurturing Made-in-India’ fashion businesses that can lead the world in innovation,” adds Nikhil Behl, chief executive officer, Fashion Business, IMAGES Group.
As India’s relentless march as the world’s largest consumer economy continues, international brands are increasingly scouting market entry opportunities. And IFF 2023 will facilitate this robustly, hosting a versatile UK and Northern Ireland delegation comprising beauty, fashion and lifestyle brands presented by the UK Govt’s Dept of International Trade.
Multiple show highlights include the immersive India Brand Show 2023 on 27th February, featuring spectacular RTW collections from leading brands, and compelling masterclasses conducted by tech giants Meta and Google, on the Fashion Metaverse, and Building Fashion Businesses in an Omnichannel World, respectively.
Among the highly innovative conference sessions is the 50 Brand Custodians’ #GroupThink, a mesmerising, out-of-the-box talk series, with speakers required to present one powerful insight on business value creation in just 60 seconds each. The session is already drawing tremendous interest from fashion companies and leaders, and is slated to be a major show-stealer at the event.
A remarkable gathering of minds and ideas will happen at the exciting IFF Fashion Lab, which will feature Master Talks from a collection of fashion conceptualisation, design and marketing gurus, including Karunesh Vohra, Catalyst at Business of Design, Dr Naresh Tyagi, Chief Sustainability Officer, ABFRL, Abhishek Ganguly, MD, PUMA (India and Southeast Asia), among others.
A stunning masterclass on AI and EI in fashion trends by VisioNxt Trend Insight and Forecasting Lab at NIFT and the launch of India’s first AI and EI enabled Fashion Trend Book will be another event highlight.
Given consumers’ increasingly strident calls for responsible fashion creation, the Customer-Centric Sustainability’ showcase at the event will a showcase of global value chain partners and their innovations that help improve sustainability of the current offering at retail. Also emphasising the imperative of building responsible brands, the Brands with Purpose: Time to Walk the Talk’ session will lay out the path to building purposeful value.
With sustainable innovation as a focus area, the IFF Innovators Club, chaired by Dr Naresh Tyagi, Chief Sustainability Officer, ABFRL, will launch a pan-India movement to recognise individual achievements in fashion product design, development, buying / sourcing and merchandising. Moving away from conventional fashion business conversations, this special event will be the first-ever initiative to unveil and acknowledge the contribution of product designers, buyers and merchandising exclusively from fashion and retail companies, and will also feature the inaugural Stylumia-IFF Innovation Excellence Awards ceremony.
As always, the 22nd edition of India Fashion Forum ends in spectacular style with the IMAGES Fashion Awards 2023 ceremony, recognising fashion and lifestyle brands and retailers with exceptional business performance and innovation judged on a cross section of metrics during 2022.
Over 200 speakers and leaders from top companies representing the fashion retail value chain will discuss, present and deliberate over different topics in the two-day conference. More than 400 brands and companies will take part and exhibit their products, services and solutions. Among the speakers at the 22nd IFF are: Shailesh Chaturvedi, managing director and chief executive officer, Arvind Fashions Limited; Akhilesh Prasad, President and chief executive officer, Fashion and Lifestyle Business, Reliance Retail; Amisha Jain, managing director and senior vice president, South Asia, Middle East, Africa, Non-EU, Levi Strauss & Co; Dilip Kapur, President, Hidesign; Rajesh Jain, managing director and chief executive officer, Lacoste India; Dr. Naresh Tyagi, Chief Sustainability Officer, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, Suparna Mitra, chief executive officer, Watches and Wearables, Titan Company among many others.
(Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with PNN and PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.).
