Girisons in expansion mode

Girisons Fabrics Pune Pvt Ltd (Girisons),Bombay Dyeing's distributors for Maharashtra, plans to expand its presence across the state by opening new stores and also entering the retail mall segment by opening outlets in large malls.

Amit Jain, director, Girisons, told mediapersons that the company would open six to eight new stores in Maharashtra in the next one year.

These will include one more in Pune and the rest in cities like Nashik, Kolhapur and Aurangabad. The stores would be opened in leased premises and the investment in the expansion plan - largely the merchandise - would be "a few crore." He didn't offer specific figures.

All the new stores would be large format stores, he said, adding that they would stock all major brands in menswear in addition to Bombay Dyeing's Vivaldi range and also display specially-crafted home and bed linen.

He informed that the company had signed up well-known fashion designer Krshna Mehta to design the quilts and rajai sets for Girisons.

Meanwhile, Girisons have expanded its showroom on the Pune's business district Lakshmi Road to 12,000 sft to offer the entire range of home linen with national and international brands such as Espirit Home, Zeba and Ratan Fabrics of Jaipur besides the parent range of Bombay Dying.

He said the company was also planning to make an entry into the malls segment by opening up to five outlets in major malls.

"We will look at four or five major malls in the city to open large format outlets measuring about 5,000 sft," he said. The company may also enter the Mumbai market in the mall format.