With a vision and commitment to be a leading enterprise in the textile industry, Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills manufactures of world class cotton and blended yarns is looking at increasing its business by 15 to 20 per cent this fiscal. The company did business worth Rs 720 crores in the last fiscal?? (IS THIS FIGURE FOR LAST YEAR)??. Talking about their business plans, Jay Soyantar, Vice President, Marketing, Suryalakshmi said, “At present, the business is very challenging. All the markets are very difficult, especially the Indian market but we are continuously innovating and upgrading, making new collection and rising above the competition to protect ourselves against competition.”
Suryalakshmi produces fabric and although its capacity is 40 million metres, it is able to produce around 37-38 million metres. “We are not planning to expand our production capacity but are looking at upgrading by having more spinning in-house, better processing among others,” added Soyantar.
The company’s latest technology is all about yarns and finishes or fabrics. Soyantar reveals, “There are new finishes for fabrics, different kind of coatings like subtle and fine coatings, fine shades in denims and special finishes to make the fabric very soft and shiny.” Suryalaksmi has lot of specialized machinery; it has its mercerizing plant, coating plant, latest sewing machines etc. “Most of our machines are new and the average age of our machine is less than 6 years. We have bought some machine in last one year, some in last two and a half years etc.,” adds Soyantar.
For the winter collection, Suryalakshmi will have a lot of colours like different shades of blues and several other colours. There will also be more super stretch. “As it is still under production, it is too premature to talk about what all we will be making but certainly the new production will have a collection with many products,” Soyantar informs.
Elaborating on fabric trends, Soyantar says, “Coated denim with super stretch, different colours of blues, fabrics with very fine polyester with very flat look, spun polyester, spun polyester stretch which is expensive is in trend. It is expensive because it is not filament and it comes in different colours like blues and greens, khakhi and yellow and red etc. Several shades of blue from light to medium blue and very bright blues like turquoise blue and different kinds of blues are also in demand. High stretch of more than 40 per cent is also in fashion.”
The collections for Fall 2014 is already ready and that of Spring/ Summer 2015 is yet to be made. This collection is expected to come out in late November. “It is too early to talk about the next collection but we are working on it now. Our main business is international, so we follow the trends in Europe and the US,” adds Soyantar.
For Fall 2014, the demand is for stretch, super stretch, micro filament stretch, there are fine spun polyester stretch and dark colours like black, grey, some brown, some heavy fabrics, some medium weight fabrics. The most unique trend in Europe and the US is is stretch fabric for men.
