Online shopping may well have replaced diamonds as a girl's best friend.
And few people have bigger success stories to tell in this space than Lord Waheed Alli. The former founding chairman of
Asos.com, the UK-based leader of the online high street cult, is now looking to ply his trade at
Koovs.com, an Indian fashion portal that’s hoping to follow the same trajectory.
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“When we started Asos 12 years ago, there were a handful of us with
four million dollars that we’d raised on the UK stock exchange,” Alli
recalls, adding, “And when I left at the end of last year, we were worth
3.5 billion dollars.”
The stratospheric ascent, he attributes to three basic elements:
trendy clothes of good quality, competitive prices, and the ability to
sell to a bored teenager just browsing the web from her cellphone.
Now, overseeing the launch of Koovs’s first namesake fashion line,
Koovs Private Label, Alli insists the same principles apply. “We’re
launching trendy, quality clothing at great prices. We’re not going all
out to promote ourselves, because if the clothes are good, people will
talk about them. That’s how we live or die in the market.” With him,
Alli brings former Asos product director Robert Bready as creative
director for Koovs.
While he hasn’t noticed any distinction between the UK market and
India – except for our studied love of “sparkle”- Alli promises that all
the label’s collections will be as trend forward as the offerings on
any international portal.
It's clear that they do not want to depend solely on local clothing
manufacturers to keep up with the frenetic pace of fashion trends. And
unlike with Asos, Indian customers don't have to wait two weeks to get
their hands on the products.
“I was at the New York Fashion Week, and the trends that were on
display for Spring/Summer 2013 can all be found in this collection. We
have ‘monoplay’ which is black and white, and ‘70s romance (as seen at
Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton)," says Alli.
Plans for the website include finding more “Indian-looking models” to
connect better with the customer and that all-important catchphrase:
designer collaborations.
“There are three in place, but we can only make the formal
announcements once the legalities are complete. But I can promise it’ll
be a mix – some unknown designers that will blow you away with their
talent, and household names that you’ve always wanted to see online.”