Arvind Fashions Gets Licence For Wrangler

Arvind Fashions, a subsidiary of Arvind Mills, has secured licence to manufacture and market Wrangler jeans in India.

Announcing this yesterday, Govind Mirchandani, president-garments division of Arvind Mills said, "We have already invested Rs 36 crore in the business. We have put up a 100,000 sq ft modern manufacturing plant in Bangalore with totally automated machines and state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques."

Technology support being provided by V F Corporation, Arvind Fashions is launching Wrangler jeans in a wide variety of styles, fits, fabrics and finishes at prices starting from Rs 995.

In addition, the Wrangler range consists of chinos also at the same price and a special range of outdoor clothing under its Trail sub-brand.

The entire Wrangler range will be available in 37 exclusive stores before Diwali, including 17 stand-alone stores and 12 leading departmental stores such as Shoppers' Stop, Crossroads, Globus, Lifestyle and Kemp Fort.

"Before the year end, Arvind Fashions plans to raise the number of exclusive Wrangler stores to 70," Mirchandani said.

The company has built a production capacity of one million pairs of jeans and will achieve a production target of two million pairs of jeans within the next two years.

Timothy R Wheeler, president of V F Europe Jeanswear said, "Arvind has made a great success of our brand Lee. We are sure Arvind will redefine the jeans culture in India with Wrangler."

Wrangler products, manufactured in India, will match international quality standard. They will use its internationally renowned Broken Twill denim fabric, which is soft, comfortable, and yet stronger than ordinary denim fabric.

The size of the Indian premium jeans market is an estimated 1.1 million units per annum, in which Lee is the market leader with a market share of 35 per cent.