Tuesday, February 16, 2010

IF Brands (HURTADO) To Open Fendi Store, Young America In India

International Furnit­ure Brands, a retail chain for luxury home products earlier known as Hurtado, plans to open a store for the Italian furniture brand Fendi in India. The brand recently launched the Fendi Casa collection in its existing store in Delhi.

IFBrands is also looking for a tie-up with Armani Casa, another Italian bra­nd, to open a mono store.

Samvit Tara, director, International Furniture Br­ands (IFBrands), told Financial Chronicle, “We are in talks with Fendi to open a mono store in India.”

IFBrands also plans to soon launch children’s fur­niture collections. Said Ta­ra, “We have tied up with Young America, an Ame­rican children’s furniture brand, to open concept st­ores here. The first store would be launched in Delhi in the next six months.”

Started in 1989, the br­and represents 30 intern­a­tional designer furniture li­nes, furnishings, lighting and accessories from high-end brands including Fergson Copeland, Christopher Guy, Fendi Casa, Kenzo Ma­ison, Donghia, Ipe Cavalli and many others. The company imports the furniture from Europe and the US.

Though it originally sta­rted with classical furnit­ure, IFBrands now has a mix of traditional and contemporary furniture.

With a presence already in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, IFBrands plans to open stores in Hyderabad and Kolkata this year and add two more stores in no­rth Mumbai. “We want to be present in each and ev­ery major city in India. Later on we will go to Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Ludhiana. We might also get into franchising after a year,” Tara informed. IFBrands claims it has no competitor in the market. “We represent all the top 30 global luxury brands for furniture, lighting and accessories,” said Tara.

With prices starting from Rs 50,000 and going up to Rs 25 lakh, IFBrands targets niche customers. “Our clie­nts like to buy top-end stuff. May be we are serving only just one per cent of the market but still we count it as a big number. Our business has grown over the last four years and we hope to be doing a turnover of Rs 70-100 crore soon,” said Tara.

Source:By Manisha Yadava Feb 15 2010 , New Delhi

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