Designer wear suitable for the international market is still a challenge for Indian designers and most of them prefer to stick on to traditional strengths in both techniques used and silhouettes experimented with, giving them limited success and penetration in the global market. Understandably, to discover an Indian designer who has impressed the global market and even global design houses with his inspired royal themes in home fashion was a revelation. Ajaz Nanda, CEO of Ajaz Nanda Designs, which has a showroom in Dubai and manufacturing operations in Noida (Delhi-NCR), shares with Apparel Online the secret of his success, as also his future growth plans.
Luxury in home fashion and that too with vintage inspiration and global appeal is very rare but Ajaz Nanda, a luxury designer and an entrepreneur having niche in the home furnishing segment with his very high-end collections inspired by royal era is offering complete range of home products for the connoisseurs. Priced for those who value uniqueness, a curtain from Ajaz’s collection starts from US $ 120 per curtain and goes up to US $ 500, a bed set would cost around US $ 4,000. His each product is backed by a specific story and great inspiration. In his words, “A woman has options of luxury in bags and accessories, but when it comes to homes, fashion is very limited and often understated; I am bringing that missing element of fashion into homes.” Till now Ajaz had been retailing his products on a direct project basis, but with his work getting wider audience and appreciation, he is diversifying to work with boutiques that can really run his products without losing the exclusivity.
Admirers of Ajaz’s work include many well known designers, which continue to humble him, while giving him motivation for better collections. Recently, Roberto Cavalli visited Ajaz’a showroom in Dubai and liked his products so much that he invited Ajaz to Milano to do some business with him by creating a line exclusively for his fashion house. “I have not even begun to explore my potential, as I was so tied up with my retail, but now I am looking at avenues, exploring the markets to identify what we can tap. We have to see how we can build it further,” says Ajaz who is also in touch with few boutiques of Egypt to get regular orders but in higher volumes. The brand also has customers in Nigeria, Holland, US, Italy and many other countries.
Being well familiar with the challenges of market, and especially with regards to luxury, Ajaz admits that sale of all his products is based on aspiration. Despite having high net worth if someone is not feeling good, he will not buy luxury. But the limited nature of the aspirational market does not worry him as he too has limitations in production. “My customers are those who are looking for aspirational products, there is a wow factor when anyone enters into my showroom and sees the art, craft, beauty and highest ladder of home fashion. So if anyone has money and aspiration, my product will take 5 seconds to make him my customer,” says Ajaz.
The quality of work that goes into creating products is very high, one curtain takes at least two months to complete and 4 to 5 people work on it (due to heavy value addition); so orders like 500 pieces in one go is not viable for him. Further he doesn’t want to over saturate the market. “I am trying to create a brand value for my concept; I don’t want to sell any of the products short. But that doesn’t mean that I am fleecing my customer. I am taking the due charge for the art I am presenting, so our work is not totally commercial,” continues Ajaz. Being vertical in terms of design, distribution and direct sales through its showroom, retailing whatever the brand makes is not difficult.
Motivated by their success in the global market, Ajaz and his team is preparing for newer segments and newer customers. Since the complete sourcing of material and manufacturing (outsourced) is in India, the brand intends to do some different collections where the focus is on brand India, as there is a growing potential for designer home fashion in India. “Our inspirations are in the times gone by like the Mughal Era, Ottoman Era, French Renaissance, English and Orthodox Church influences, so we are reviving all the craft and feel of those times into home collections. One doesn’t see home décor’ like those that exist in Falaknuma palace, or Topkapi palace anymore and these have become museum pieces. But I am not expecting too much, just following my instincts to get leads from China, India through participation in various international fairs,” says Ajaz.
In today’s better connected era, where people are more aware, even those who have simple homes have aspiration, they want to get a feel of a palace in their homes and that is the customer which the Ajaz Nanda Brand wants to tap. “We are very enthusiastic about new avenues and are exploring retail options through boutiques,” shares Ajaz. Collections from the brand have extensive use of rich fabrics like velvet, silk, satin, printed poly satin with lot of appliqué, cut piece work, merging it all together to develop one product. Every article has so much of detail that it is a unique piece. There could be use of regular fabrics like linen and cotton but when it comes together for the brand, it is completely a new story.
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