Adgully Exclusive | Fashion is an art, while we represent commerce, lets not mix the two: DHL's Chandrashekar Pitre

Lakme Fashion Week Winter / Festive 2011 was one event where one witnessed a smooth amalgamation of 'non fashion business outfits' associating with 'fashion' in numerous ways.One such association was that of DHL with LFW, where DHL the official logistics partner for LFW, gave designers Nachiket Barve, Little Shilpa and Swapnil Shinde an opportunity to put their creativity to the ultimate test with Speed as the inspiration.

Speaking exclusively to Adgully, Chandrashekar Pitre, Senior Director Marketing, DHL Express said, "our association with Lakme Fashion Week is a part of our global association with the fashion week's across the world. We have been associated with fashion week's in around 15 cities around the world, be it New York, Sydney, Milan etc."

Commenting on the opportunities that they see in a brand like their's being associated with another brand like Lakme, Chandrashekar said, "Well, as long as the brands are not contradicting and conflicting, I don't think there's a problem of being associated with a brand. With us, the reason why we associate with fashion is because fashion is one of our most important industry verticals, its a large part of our business". Having said this, he also feels that if they want to continue as the market leaders, its important for them to understand the business of fashion, its customer, trends and the various elements that go in the making of fashion business successful.

"The milage that one can get from any association cannot be quantified as easily as stating in monetary terms", he said. Chandrashekar believes that mileage is more in terms of brand recall, customer affinity, customer engagement, engaging with the industry, stake holders etc. "So for us, its more than numbers", he said.

Highlighting the fact that fashion is art and DHL representing pure commerce, Chandrashekar critically commented that, "the designers have their own creative liscence and we do not want to interrupt with our suggestions; the only reason being we do not understand their work as good as they do. So I think the business of fashion runs independently, so the commerce does not inter fear with the creative or vice versa."

When asked whether this association with LFW is viewed as a part of their growth or marketing strtegies, Chandrashekar very firmly replied, "fashion industry is highly important to us to an extent where we have an entire sales channel dedicated to fashion - textiles and apparels. We also have a customer service team catering to fashion. So, what we do is have our own fashion shows, as a part of our customer engagement program, build customer loyalty, which obviously helps in generating revenue."

Talking about DHL's association with the three designers, Chandrashekar, with a little giggle said, "We dont know fashion. But we needed creatives, who fit the bill of our theme 'Speed'. We selected these three because they were young, talented, wacky, crazy and what we feel - the future of fashion." With a full house and lots of appreciation coming their way, the DHL team feels that each of them had an element of DHL in them. Little Shilpa had packaging and lots of yellow in her designs, while Nachiket Barve played with hues of dawn to dusk which meant DHL delivers 24x7, and Swapil Shinde had the concept of a call center, which even DHL has now, to reach out and help customers.When asked about his personal favorite among the threee designers, "Your asking me to chose between my 3 children and i am not going to answer that", he quipped. | By Ankita Tanna [ankita(at)adgully.com]