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That's what the Kolkata-based Champdany Industries believes, and it has launched an entire range of jute offerings (including garments) to back this belief. By Rakhi Mazumdar Jute carpets? Yes. Wall hangings? May be. Curtains? Well, if you stretch things... But garments? Strange as that may sound, that's the line the Calcutta-based Champdany Industries is mouthing. Coming from anyone else, the claim could have been dismissed as one of those occasional delusional rambling brought about by the onset of the Indian summer, but Champdany has the kind of track record (as far as jute is concerned) that forces people to sit up and take notice when it says something. Just to refresh you memory, patient reader, here goes: Champdany was the first jute company to work on improving the quality of jute yarn. That done, it set about manufacturing normal quality fibres from the yarn (in the past, the poor quality of yarn had made this impossible). Just when the rest of the jute industry was catching up with its innovations, Champdany did one better by introducing clean fabric which lent itself to dyeing and bleaching (that's right, think coloured jute). The company was also the first to make jute shopping bags, and its fabric, a mix of jute and polypropylene, was the material picked by VIP Industries for the ( now) best-selling Skybags series. Bata, to complete an impressive CV, uses another innovative mixed product from the company's stables -- this time, a combination of jute and cotton -- to make children's shoes. With almost 70 per cent of its 180 crore turnover stemming from exports, Champdany's execs have the right to make the kind of claims they do. " We are yet to market products under our brand-name, but Champdany itself is synonymous with innovation and fashion," boasts Nirmal Pujaria who heads the company's marketing function. Export markets, then, will be the first to witness the company's garments-initiative, although Pujaria claims these offerings will be launched in the domestic market soon after. In early 2001, the Delhi-based National
Institute of Fashion technology hosted a fashion show where models walked
the ramp dressed in jute garments. If Champdany has its way, what happened
on the catwalk yesterday, could well be repeated, on a larger scale on the
streets. The winner, of course, will be jute: from sack to suits, you've
come a long way, baby. |
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