To promote Indian talent, fast fashion brand Styched has come up with a new line called, Styched Life. It offers fashion merchandise with an eclectic twist.
A number of celebrities are being roped in to incorporate their trademark dialogues and achievements in the designs to establish a better connect with the buyers.
It has also collaborated with the legendary Indian comic brands – Diamond Comics and Amar Chitra Katha – and rolled out their first Chacha Chaudhary collection, which has found many takers among comic lovers.
“Our aim is to enable every Indian talent to create their fan merchandise or fashion merchandise line for free, host with us and earn a major share of the profits,” says Soumajit Bhowmik, CEO Styched.
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Who are the celebrities on board, and what’s the idea behind these collaborations?
We have collaborated with Rohit Roy, Salim-Sulaiman, Rohan Bopanna and Baba Sehgal till now, because they all have a clear connect with the youth.
We want to have over 500 associations in the first six months.
The merchandise would enable fans in India to have easy access to apparel created by their favourite celebrities with the celebrity persona clearly visible through creative designing.
What is your target audience? And how has been the response so far?
Our target age group is between 18 to 30, and millennials.
The response has been overwhelming.
One of our collaborators, Green Humour, an internationally acclaimed cartoonist, completed 100 sales in the first week of launch, while another celebrity crossed 500 sales in the first month itself.
What about the tie-ups with Diamond Comics and Amar Chitra Katha?
We started Styched Life to promote Indian talents, brands, bands, artists, celebrities and influencers.
Though there is a huge demand for fan merchandise, most brands in India are still stuck with the likes of Marvel, DC, and other Western brands.
We decided to become India’s Vocal for local alternative to fan merchandising, but at a massive scale. Hence, we started with Indian comics and cartoon characters like Suppandi, Sambhu, Diamond Comics characters –Shaktimaan, Chacha Choudhary, etc.
What is in the pipeline?
We want to make Styched Life as a Google search for all fan merchandise. We are working on closing nearly to 50 deals in the next couple of weeks, and have more than 500 celebrities in the pipeline.
We will soon launch Buried Alive – a Styched TV production initiative to recognise the efforts of an Indian star or celebrity, whose contribution to the country or society has been forgotten over time. We will make short movies on them and launch their merchandise to support them. The first in this series is Bula Choudhury.
What should a brand do to keep their audience engaged during this pandemic when not many are on a buying spree?
Adapt, Transform, Disrupt are the key terms that define a brand approach. Understanding the pulse of the customers and changing business strategy and offerings to our new way of life is the key. When there is no demand, we have to create one.
That is how businesses succeed. The current times have created the perfect situation for every brand to put on the creative marketer’s hat and come up with that ‘new’ thing.
Did technology help the apparel & fashion brands in India?
Yes, a large number of offline retailers have moved online. Technology has enabled brands to get a wider reach and garner sales even when stores are shut.
Use of Social media and other display/search networks have enabled performance based advertisements, to drive online sales and to improve branding and brand visibility.