Six years in business after completing her graduation from the US, Ayesha Katrak is Executive Director of Color Lines, a Bangalore based export house specialising in fashion kidswear, thanks to her mother Bela Katrak, the Founder and Managing Director of the company who pushed her to join the family business. “I was the ‘fitting dummy’ for a lot of kidswear when my mom started the business. I never thought that one day I would run the same business. Working up through the ranks, department to department, Ayesha shares with Team Apparel Online her success story with Color Lines…
The six units of Color Lines mainly cater to high street brands of UK and other European countries. “We started as a small unit in 1997 and now we have about 2000 machines,” says Ayesha candidly. The company is doing a lot of fashion inputs for which a strong design team constantly works on new ideas and luckily it is also the core area of interest for Ayesha. “A lot of our customers come to us with ladies style to be translated into children’s wear, which becomes very challenging at times. One of the biggest challenge comes when a buyer wants a bead look, but not real beads, then we have to find ways to replicate beads like using sugar glitter and if we are using it then we have to see which gums and dyes are being used for the same; are they meeting our AQL level,” avers Ayesha.
The designs at Color Lines do not go from paper to production, but they have to pass through stringent quality checks and fabric test analyses before the designing of the product starts. “Our PD team has been trained to keep safety and environmental norms and manufacturing technicalities in mind before they use the aesthetics,” informs Ayesha. For each buyer, Color Lines has assigned one PD professional, as knowing a buyer means being trained to read the handwriting of that buyer and its signature style so as to deliver designs accordingly, consistently and continuously. “Strategically, the company works with the entire line of the buyer right from infants to toddlers to grown-up children which helps us to get hands on the full handwriting of the children’s wear department,” reasons Ayesha.
In children’s wear the consumption of fabric is very small about 0.50 or 0.65 of a metre, so it becomes very critical on how one uses the fabric optimally because the fabric mills work with certain minimums. At Color Lines, fabric is being smartly used, so if they have made a yarn dyed shirt, then it can make a scarf out of the remaining fabric which can go as a complementary piece. The company is doing a lot of fashion accessories for kids like scarves, hats, booties, purses, etc. everything is fabric based so that no fabric goes waste. With production capacity at 5,00,000 pieces per month, the company is producing 85% woven and 15% knitted garments, mostly used as supplementary wear. “We have capability to make complete matching sets, as we strategically use the fabric; like if there is a woven dress, then a little knitted body suit or a T-shirt underneath is coordinated, similarly knitted leggings are supplemented with a tunic,” shares Ayesha.
The success of Color Lines is due to its Delhi-like product range and the ability to understand and produce kidswear in a lean process with extensive use of polyester. “To be honest, kidswear has actually given us ability to grow during the recession. In other product categories there is fierce competition, the first to hit by recession is menswear, then women, but kids keep growing and they need clothes. Secondly the stable market prices of polyester kept us on the growth path and now with lean implementation in our factory, there have been remarkable results,” says Ayesha.
The company has gone in for lean implementation at two of its units, with one unit being functional on lean systems for almost eight months now. While GIZ is the consultant for lean management, the programme is in coordination with C&A, a major buyer to the company. “We have experienced drastic changes in our factory especially in the attitude of the people, also the cost factor was staggering which has come down quite a bit and efficiencies have improved so all adds to low cost of manufacturing. Once lean is successfully implemented in the current units then we can move on to other factories,” shares Ayesha. The company is also going through a Sustainable Supplier Programme, where systems are being spruced up to fetch maximum efficiencies, bring out the quality defects and increase the production output.
[bleft]In children’s wear, we are offering “lightening deliveries” to our buyers who are doing fashion products, especially for the French and Italian buyers. They see something online or on the ramp and they want it immediately, and we deliver it as we have the spec in order.[/bleft]
Who can resist the lure of the growth story of the domestic market and the US $ 28 million Color Lines too have entered into domestic retail by launching its own kidswear brand called ‘Baboosh’ six months back in Bangalore and are selling it through Flipkart. “We thought of launching our own brand because we feel that India really has a dearth of good kidswear brands and when we are providing such beautiful garments for the international market, why not for India. We are happy with our steady growth in the domestic market and it is certainly a growth driver,” concludes Ayesha.
