Think of socks as a fashion category in the Indian space, and there exist only a couple of brands in organized space.
Since childhood, socks have been an essential part of our wardrobes. Be it shiny whites school socks to the designer ones for office, socks are still a fashion rage now.
Two of the premium sock brands — Balenzia and Mustang adapt licensing in its business model to avoid the mess.
Mustang Socks:
Headquartered in Mumbai, Naazneen Katrak founded Mustang Socks in 1987. She saw that India did not have reasonably priced good quality socks and wanted to be the one to offer them.
Lubeina Shahpurwala joined Mustang and initially helped Naazneen with the business. Three years later, in 2004, she took up the mantle of co-founder with a vision to make it a premium global apparel brand.
Mustang is one of the biggest manufacturers of socks in India and holds a market share of about 50% in the organized sector.
Mustang Socks, as a brand, symbolizes a trendy lifestyle, making socks a necessary fashion accessory for every occasion, across age groups.
The company produces over a million pair of socks every month, and has 40 distributors across India. It has tie-ups with large brands, retailers and e-tailors including those such as FirstCry and Hopscotch.
They also have the official licensee’s for:
- Motu Patlu
- Ninja Hatori
- Peanuts
- Minions Despicable Me 3
- Paw Patrol
- Pegga Pig
- Winx
- Jungle Book
- Purple Turtle
- Colour Fairies
- Garfield
Mustang follows a hybrid model where it ensures it allows customers to reach out to it directly through its web presence.
Over the years, the company have increased their product portfolio from socks and also include tights, leggings, headbands, wristbands, children’s briefs, children’s vests, camisoles, baby handkerchiefs and wipes.
Balenzia:
Balenzia is a leading brand of premium socks. The collection for 2016-2017 brings to India the latest designs, styles and colors, the expressive and uncommonly cool range helps gentlemen stand-out of the crowd.
The leading brand of had joined hands with Turner International owned Cartoon Network to introduce the Justice League collection to serve the increasing demand from superhero enthusiasts for branded merchandise.
Balenzia has also acquire the Justice League franchise in India.
The choice of colorful variants for men, women and kids are inspired by the Justice League graphic novel bandwagon Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Green Lantern & flash. This exciting collection would definitely make gentlemen stand-out in the crowd.
In an interview to Licence India, Rahul Gupta, Director, Balenzia said that socks as a category is very nascent in India and disc-organized at the same time with just a handful of major players.
Rahul believes that brand licensing helped the companies to break through the clutter in a difficult scenario.
The products are available at a price starting Rs. 109 – 599 across all leading retail stores and online stores like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabong and Balenzia website.
