Arvind banks on coloured jeans in its denim portfolio

Move over the conventional indigo denim; it is now the coloured stretch denim that has caught the fancy of Arvind Limited's clients. The denim division of Arvind Limited is increasingly receiving orders for either coloured denim fabric or denim fabric which can see colour being added at the last minute by garmenters.

Recently, as part of its R&D efforts along with global spandex manufacturer INVISTA, Arvind Ltd has come with two variants of coloured denim called Arvind LYCRA Spice and Arvind LYCRA Colour Splash.

Developed using the LYCRA brand of spandex Arvind LYCRA Spice is a B2B innovation wherein Arvind supplies washed down denim fabric to garmenters who can add colours through reactive dyeing at the last minute.

"Similar to indigo denim, the Arvind LYCRA Spice gives a stretch denim whose colour will fade gradually. As part of our innovation, we wanted to come up with a coloured which behave like a conventioanl denim. We wanted to bring life into a flat coloured bottom weights. Our customers are loving the innovation since in the last few months demand for colour denim is picking up," said Subir Mukherjee, head-marketing at Arvind Limited.

Of the total 110 million metres of denim fabric manufactured by Arvind Limited, currently coloured denim forms five per cent of the total portfolio.

"We are looking at growing this share to 10 per cent," said Mukherjee.

As part of its stretch denim innovation with INVISTA's LYCRA brand of spandex, Arvind has also launched the 'Tough Max' and 'Cool Max' brand of stretch denim jeans.

"We are working closely with VF Corporation and Levis for our Tough Max and Cool Max innovation in stretch denim. While the former is a more rugged but comfortable jeans with twice as much strength as 100 per cent cotton, the latter absorbs moisture quickly and keeps the consumer cool. We would be supplying around 450,000 metres of Tough Max alone in the next four months to one of the clients," said Mukherjee.

What's more, such has been the company's success in INVISTA's LYCRA stretch denim that Arvind is looking to expand share of stretch denim in its total 110 million metres of denim fabric portfolio to 50 per cent by the end of the current financial year.

Without divulging investment details, Mukherjee said that as part of the stretch denim innovation, the company recently invested in setting up 20,000 spindles in last three months for manufacturing LYCRA stretch denim of varied nature.

Part of the textile conglomerate Arvind Limited, the denim division is pegged at a turnover of around Rs 1800 crore.