In an effort to reduce dependency on import of fashion clothing, the country’s apparel industry has started creating brands for local market. After meeting local demand, the manufacturers also plan to export the products of locally created brands. Targeting the young customers mostly, the brands will have a native taste integrating folk arts and Bangali tradition. The design makes a fusion of the East and the West to provide the consumers with a one stop solution to global fashion trends at affordable prices. “With the increase of local consumers’ purchasing power, the RMG makers have come up to generate local brands. This will meet local demand and reduce dependency,” said Anwarul Alam Choudhury Parvez, owner of Evince Group. He said they were making products with a combination of latest local and global patterns of fashion, which would be attractive to the consumers. Anwarul, also ex-president of BGMEA, hoped they would be able to export if reputation could be achieved. He is an adviser to local brand Noir created by his sons MS Hasan, director of Amber Lifestyle, said the imported products didn’t fit well in the body of most local people as they products were not made for Bangladesh. “We are manufacturing clothes considering the figure of local customers. They are fitting well,” he said. He said there were also family package and causal dresses which were especially made for young people. At present, Amber Lifestyle is making trendy fashion products keeping consistency with the seasons. MS Hasan claimed the response from the customers was good. Nabila Khondaker, a customer, said she was happy with the local brands. “The quality of local brands is far better than that of the imported from India, China or Pakistan. The dress of local brands fits well, which means they were specially designed for the local customers,” said Nabila. She also said the most problems with the local brands are unavailability of products with variation in designs. Faruq Hassan, manging director of Giant Group, said as they had the experience of making dresses for the top global brands like Zara, H&M, Walmart, Inditex and American Eagle, the quality of local fashion products is better than that of the imported ones. He said the local market of fashion products had been dominated by the imports, but the choice of locals had changed, which led them to produce brands. Faruq, however, said as the consumption of fashionable products was still seasonal, the growth of local brands remained slow. He urged the customers to help expand the local brands using locally made products. According to sales department of respective brands, sales were growing at 10-15% annually and the major customer group is the youth. According to the industry people, the local market size of apparel products is over Tk22,000 crore, of which local brands account for 10% of the figure
