Creyate ‘will be your own personalised garment’

Globally, the trend is towards personalisation of garments, according to Kulin S Lalbhai, the scion of Arvind Ltd and the brain behind omni-channel retail brand Creyate.

In a chat with BusinessLine , Lalbhai talks about how Creyate, which was launched four months back, can become a ₹100-crore brand and its retail expansions plans. Excerpts

How different is Creyate from the local darzi (tailor)? Isn’t the essence of the brand on customised tailoring, something which has been around for ages in our country? 

Creyate is an omni-channel brand which means it is both online and offline. It is a start-up and we are looking to change the way people shop for apparel. E-commerce is the next big thing and we want to sell personalised clothing.

However, in the online space, everything is mass manufactured. So when you walk into a Creyate showroom, you can choose from hundreds of clothing material and create your personalised suiting, shirting. Our 3D visualisation software helps you to create your garment by taking accurate measurements and deliver it in 12 days at your doorstep.

Will personalisation make the end product expensive? Also from the company’s perspective wouldn’t it be expensive to make one garment and deliver it?

The products may be more expensive by 15-20 per cent. But it will be your [own] personalised product and not mass manufactured and marketed. You can create more than 100,000 variations on the website. The designs will be created in our automated factory at Bengaluru. Creyate will cater to men primarily with shirts, suits, trousers; and shirts and denims for women. The shirts will be available at price points ranging from ₹2,200 to ₹20,000, denims from ₹2,100 to ₹8,000.

Is Creyate targeted at only those cities where it can have physical stores?

Since this is a start-up model, we intend to pilot the concept in the top 15-20 cities initially. In cities where we are not in a position to have our own stores, our representatives or Style Stewards will be doing home visits and take your measurements. Following this, you can get your made-to-order apparels.

  Is there a global model you followed when you were looking to launch Creyate?

We borrowed ideas from several international firms in sectors like telecom, automobile and apparels and realised that personalisation was the way forward. In e-commerce also, personalisation is the trend. However, e-commerce, per se, doesn’t offer the same. We saw a long-term opportunity there. We expect the business to help us achieve revenues of ₹100 crore in a couple of years.

 What are the plans for the brand?

We will be launching the brand in international markets such as the US and Europe in the near term. In India, we already have opened four stores. We will be largely targeting malls with an average store size of 600 sq feet. The idea is to keep the costs low.

What is the kind of investment you have made in the brand?

As I mentioned, it is a start-up and we have so far invested about ₹8 crore.

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