CHENNAI: It’s a Monday evening. The RmKV Silks showroom on the North Usman Road is busy as ever. Every floor of the five-storied building is packed with people making their muhurtham (wedding) and festive purchases. We catch up with Niranjana Viswanathan, the director of RmKV, who was rather calm and occupied with preparations for RmKV’s two-day exhibition.
“We wanted to offer our patrons a different yet peaceful shopping ambience. We will organise a session with celebrity stylist Ami Patel. She will use saris from our contemporary range and demonstrate modern-draping techniques by styling women of different age groups,” says Niranjana Viswanathan.
Iconic innovations
RmKV’s origin in 1924 as a small business in the town of Tirunelveli, the brand has become a multi-city retail company, known throughout South India for its elegant creations. The brand set its foot in malls around 2013. It has been a pioneer in the art of experimenting with handloom silk-weaving techniques. “We were always ahead of the curve. Our iconic innovations like the Hamsa Damayanti sari depicting Raja Ravi Verma’s painting, sari with 50,000 colours, and the reversible sari still stands out. For every festival we come up with a collection centred around a theme.
After a point, it became difficult for the customers to understand the design process and so we downplay our innovations. Everything cannot be achieved through natural dyes after all. We introduced natural silk sari way before sustainability fashion took roots,” says Niranjana who currently takes care of Srinika, RmKV’s in-house designer brand.
Contemporary wear
The in-house brand caters to contemporary ethnic wear without missing out on traditional crafting techniques. Layered garments, draped trousers, gowns, dhotis and palazzos are some of their latest silhouettes with hand embroideries and embellishments. “Brides will never deviate from the traditional muhurtham sari and braids. They experiment on other areas like makeup, attires for different functions and accessories. We had launched a seven-day bridal offer that included dresses for mehndi, sangeeth and cocktail parties way ahead of our time. Glad that even old people these days are open to choices. However, the auspicious tag continues to exist,” adds Niranjana whose favourite is a Kanjivaram silk in classic maroon or bottle green shade.
Niranjana feels that customers these days are better prepared for shopping than before. “Our customers from abroad and especially Malaysia, shortlist their preference from the website, take printouts and match colour codes before they come to the showroom. They know everything to an extent that T Nagar is not crowded during Tuesdays, a day not considered auspicious for buying,” she tells us.
Online retail
With multiple players in the sari business, we ask her for the future agendas. “What wasn’t accessible earlier has become very accessible now. The whole landscape has changed with e-commerce. There are many challenges in capitalising the digital platform. We were one of the first to launch a website. I don’t think we have really capitalised on that,” she says. Given a chance, she would love to explore the pop-up culture. There are no plans of immediate expansions but the brand is open to exploring different geographies.
“My mother entered the business 25 years ago. Women have a different way of approaching the attire. While men look into intricacies and techniques that go into the manufacturing, women are particular about the final output. No matter what the innovation is, the sari must be visually appealing to the buyer,” says Niranjana Viswanathan who joined RmKV in 2010 as the family’s fourth generation into the business.