“Branded innerwear is slowly worming its way into the fragmented and unorganised women’s innerwear market. Lovable Lingerie’s ‘Lovable’, a global brand licensed from Lovable World Trading Company of the US, holds the largest market share in India in premium innerwear which is a high-margin and fast-growing category. The company registered a growth of 13.6 per cent, from Rs. 13,299.39 lakhs in 2012 to Rs. 15,108.64 lakhs in the current year (2013). The profit after depreciation and tax amounted to Rs. 1,889.80 lakhs for the year ending 2012-13 as compared to Rs. 2,161.28 lakhs the previous year,” says Mr. L. Vinay Reddy, CMD, Lovable Lingerie.
Lovable Lingerie Ltd., owns a bouquet of leading knitted innerwear brands in India with flagship brands such as “Lovable”, “Daisy Dee” and “College Style”. Incorporated in 1987, the company has a wide array of products, with over 2,700 stock keeping units (SKUs) catering to the innerwear and casual wear markets and to all price and usage segments. The company products include women’s innerwear, home wear, shape wear, foundation garments and sleepwear products. Its ‘Lovable’ brand was licensed from Lovable World Trading Company (LWTC) of the US in December 1995. Subsequently, by 2000, the company acquired the brand “Lovable” from LWTC for the territories of India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan.
The innerwear products manufactured under the brand “Lovable” cater to the premium segment market in India. “Lovable” and “Daisy Dee” are the company’s flagship brands, of which “Lovable” is amongst the top three most preferred brand in women’s innerwear in India. As a part of its growth strategy, Lovable Lingerie diversified its brand portfolio and acquired brands like “Daisy Dee” and “College Style” from Maxwell Industries Ltd. and Levitus Trading Ltd., Hong Kong, in 2004 and 2009 respectively, to cater to the mid and young segment market in India.
Manufacturing facilities
Headquartered in Mumbai, Lovable lingerie has three manufacturing facilities, of which two are situated in Bangalore and the third one in Roorkee, Uttarakhand. The Bangalore facilities commenced operations in 1995 and 2005 respectively with a total installed capacity of 30 lakh pieces each per annum to manufacture women’s inner wear.
In order to increase its production capacity by 25 lakh pieces more per annum and to add more value to its products, the company plans to launch a project for modernization and integration at a new location at Doddakalasandra in Bangalore.
The Roorkee plant started functioning in February 2010, with an installed capacity of 7.5 lakh pieces per annum. It is also into manufacture of women’s inner wear. All the plants were set up as per the LWTC specifications for conformance to the international standards.
Mr. Vinay says the company’s core competency lies in understanding the prevailing trends in the women’s innerwear market and the buying preferences of customers. Also, the company needs to identify the gaps and foray into the untapped women’s innerwear market segments with its unique products. Back in 1995, the company identified that the Indian market was developing and there was potential for launching and sustaining a premium women’s innerwear brand and so entered into an agreement with LWTC, thereby acquiring its technical expertise.
Being a marketing centric organisation, which works on the consumer’s need and accordingly modifies the innerwear product and design know-how, the company sources certain international innerwear materials like lace and fabric for the products which it manufactures. Also product segments like All Day Long, Cotton Essensuals, Encircle and Tease, were established at a time when women’s innerwear market was at its nascent stage. In order to keep up with the consumer tastes and fashion cycles, the company has set up an in house design studio in Bangalore with latest equipments and a team of designers, for developing innerwear products and create styles to meet the global standards. The studio is also equipped with latest software with requisite hardware like digitiser, pattern grader, sampling, sewing machines and sample analyser.
The company’s products are retailed through multi-brand outlets such as Lifestyle and Shoppers Stop, especially for its ‘Lovable’ brand. Given the geographical restrictions such a strategy imposes, the company has slowly stepped up retailing through smaller hosiery stores. Lovable is now retailed through about 3,500 outlets and Daisy Dee’s retail footprint has expanded by over 2,500 in the past two years, taking total retail footprint to around 10,000. While focusing on women’s innerwear alone may appear restrictive, the company’s ‘London Calling’ brand marks a move into menswear as well.