Turning Bombay High into a brand from a label

What started as a local contract manufacturing unit for the garment industry in Mumbai six years ago is today readying to become a global unisex apparel brand.

In 2004, straight out of engineering college, Saurabh Pradhan, director of the Mumbai-based Cottstown Fashion Ltd, decided to try his luck in the garment business.
He started by taking contract manufacturing projects for domestic brands.

“My dad was in this line earlier and that’s how I had the apparel background,” Pradhan says.

The business was scaled up by supplying garments to organised retail players. Piramal Retail was the first client Cottstown started supplying. Retailers such as Globus, Shoppers Stop and HyperCity followed.

The company also started exporting to international brands such as O’Neill in Canada, Billabong in the US and Australia, Ripcurl in Argentina and Thomas & Co and Peter Worth in UK.
The aspiration to move up from being a garment supplier to a premium formals clothing line had already dawned upon Cottstown.

In 2006 Pradhan decided to launch Bombay High, the company’s in-house brand. “By now, Cottstown was already sourcing fabrics from the best mills in India and abroad. We developed our sourcing base a lot, got designing team, merchandising team…We understood the latest trends in the market as we were supplying to other retail brands and then we decided to launch our own brand by the name of Bombay High,” Pradhan says.

“We decided to have our own distribution in place because the market is full of brands, and labels aspiring to be brands. You need to have your own space if you need to make a mark for yourself,” he says.

Initial high for Bombay High came in through presence in multi-brand outlets when the portfolio was limited to men’s shirts. Then during 2007-08 the format was conceptualised and four stores were launched in Mumbai that offered formals and business-line range of apparel for men and women. By September this year the company will be operating 15 Bombay High stores across India and by March 2011 around 25.

Even as he is in the process of setting up stores in Bangalore, Pune, Nagpur and cities in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, Pradhan has formed a Cottstown subsidiary in the UK that will eventually lead to establishing a chain of large-format stores in London and other European markets.

By the end of this financial year, the first flagship Bombay High store will open in London. An office in New York will also open soon which will help the company get more export clients, even as the expansion internationally continues.

The company works under three separate verticals—one caters to major Indian retailers, another division takes care of the exports to international retail chains while the third one is focused on marketing the Bombay High brand through a chain of exclusive retail outlets.

“Making Bombay High a brand from a label is our vision,” Pradhan says, adding the ambition is to make Cottstown a Rs 100 crore company from Rs 24 crore turnover in March 2010.

“We already have the experience of catering to the European market, we understand what sells there and we know the taste, we know the forecasts. We have a good in-house designing team that creates styles; we have a team that sources fabrics at the best prices,” he says.

Bombay High is also looking at strengthening its casuals portfolio through an extension label called Bombay High Sport. The company stores are already selling accessories, leather bags for men and women. A foray into eye-wear toiletries is also in the cards. And later a brand to cater to the kids segment will also come up.

“The DNA of Bombay High will remain the same. We make formals for the youth, give them energy and add a dash of colours. This will continue to be seen in all our products wherever in the world we go,” Pradhan says.