Luxury houses eye India

DIVERSE: COUNTRY HAS TRICKY WATERS TO NAVIGATE

- 

SWANKY. The globe's biggest luxury brands have dreamt of India's vast consumer base for decades, but navigating the market has proven to be a complex task.

(AFP)

The globe’s biggest luxury brands have dreamt of India’s vast consumer base for decades, but navigating the market has proven to be a complex task.

French retailer Galeries Lafayette is the latest to try its luck, opening its first Indian store on Sunday, a sprawling five-floor outlet in Mumbai, the country’s financial capital.

Its splashy foray into the market is getting a local boost from the fashion arm of the Aditya Birla Group, a major Indian conglomerate.

Luxury expert and Comite Colbert CEO Benedicte Epinay called the arrival of the French department store “an important step”.

India, with 1.4 billion people, offers what Epinay called “a promising market, but still a complicated one”.