Like London, like New York,

Shailesh Chaturvedi, MD and Chief Executive officer of Arvind Fashions, is a veteran of India's fashion and lifestyle business with about three decades in the retail industry. He is the chairman of the India Fashion Forum (IFF) 2023. In a freewheeling interview with Rasul Bailay, group managing editor of IMAGES Group, Chaturvedi talks about India growth as a lucrative yet challenging market for fashion and lifestyle business and advises local and foreign brands to not to get carried away by the attractiveness of India's fashion and lifestyle market and they should rather focus on the basics like consumer definition, better execution of plans and to chase profitability.

Three decades of growing with India as a fashion market. What can you tell us about the journey?

My journey started in 1998 with Louie Philippe at British Madura Coats, one of the biggest brands in India back then. In 2000, when the Birla Group acquired the business, they promoted me to general manager for the brands Louis Phillipe, Van Heusen and Allen Solly and that gave me the opportunity to spearhead premium brands like Esprit.

The export business for Louis Phillipe, required frequent travel to Dubai. I used to visit large malls like the Dera City Centre and see Zara and many other international brands and think that eventually, these brands will come to India and we'll need to learn to compete with them, or bring them to India by partnering with them.

Those were the days of India Shining (a 2000s marketing campaign by then Bharatiya Janata Party government to showcase India's economic rise and overall economic optimism).

We were all very optimistic about the India story. And we were among the first few senior professionals looking at foreign brands.

I strongly believed that the premiumization of Indian consumers was going to happen sooner than later. I have been proven right in that sense. Not just in fashion, the shift was evident everywhere. People were upgrading their holidays, mobile phones, alcohol consumption and cars, etc.

So, the consumption patterns have changed in the last two decades...

Over time, all of us have upgraded our consumption and it has happened to fashion as well.