Coach Is Also About the Experience at Our Stores

Coach International Group President Ian Bickley talks about why they waited to enter the Indian market and how they see it as one with long-term potential.

- Paramita Chatterjee

Ian Bickley, president, international group at luxury leather brand Coach, first visited India about five years ago. “I remember I had come in a few years after the boom, when a lot of foreign brands had entered the country. We studied the market, but we decided to wait for the right opportunity,” he tells Forbes India. He says while there were a few malls catering to luxury brands, they didn’t have enough footfall.

Bickley, 53, visited India again about two years ago at the insistence of its now-India partner Genesis Luxury, which represents luxury fashion labels such as Jimmy Choo, Michael Kors and Paul Smith. “Today, luxury brands have started attracting more commercial traffic,” he says, adding that Coach sees India as a market with long-term potential. Coach launched in the country in Mumbai last year when back home, it was celebrating its 75th anniversary. Late last month, it opened its second store in India, in Delhi. “For us, the main question was also if the brand was ready. Since Coach had been going through a transformation over the last three years, we first wanted to get some clarity on our own direction,” says Bickley. Edited excerpts:

Q How do you view the luxury market in India? Do you think prestige and masstige brands are preferred here rather than pure luxury brands?