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Shubhra Gupta

Most big brands in the men's shirt segment have given the Indian male a wide range of colours, fabric and cuts to choose from.

Time was when the term `men's shirts' was practically a misnomer. Because women hadn't embraced the aforementioned garment with as much fervour as they did much, much later: along with `bob-cuts', shirts were a Westernised affectation, limited to the elite.

All shirts therefore were, in effect, men's shirts. And practically all good Indian males would have `family' tailors run up their annual quota of shirts from material got from thaans (mill-made material rolled around a slim wooden stick, which you could buy in your trusted Bombay Dyeing outlet). Corner shop-tailored shirts ruled till as late as the end of the 80s.

And then the readymade revolution caught up with India. The market was ripe for it. Trends from the West swept in, deeming the one-fit, one-fashion-for-all an outdated concept. The tailor on the verandah was banished to boys, and big brands.

My trek into stores featuring some of the big brands in the men's shirts segment (Louis Phillipe, Allen Solly, Zodiac, Colour Plus, Raymonds) in the past fortnight is a revelation: what strikes me most is the sheer range in fabric, colour and cut. I haven't seen such a profusion of hues before — from the azure blue of a Hawaiin sky to mango yellows and oranges, with mauves, purples, indigos, scarlets, and crimsons, in various shades. Even a few years ago, wine red was the most daring touch among the blues and greys that dominated shirts, and that too, in a tie, or a cravat.

And anything beyond pin stripes and discreet checks was considered sacrilegious. Casuals meant T-shirts: shirts were strictly formal, office dressing.

Whatever has happened to the famously conservative male taste, which decreed that the lines laid down decades ago were fine and dandy? It's undergone a tremendous change, which is reflected in the ready-to-wear racks. The upmarket, urban predilection for following fashion curves, spearheaded by high-end designers, has percolated into departmental store rows across big metros and smaller towns.

Says Imraan Surve, Business Head, Zodiac, "the Indian male has evolved. His exposure to international brands has made him an aware, demanding consumer". Take Zodiac, a premium men's wear brand, in the business for 55 years. Its trajectory from the beginning, when it established itself in the tie segment, branched into belts-trousers-shirts, to its recent launch of Zod, a clutch of shirts for the trendy, fashion-conscious male, tells you just how much the men's shirt market has grown.

For the longest time, shirts have had a universal use. The whites or the pin-stripes you wore to a business pow-wow or a board meet would adequately double up for the pure entertainment zone. All that's changing. The successful 25-45 male now wants a differentiation his wardrobe, between office and evening wear. That's where Zod has stepped in. Imraan Surve claims that they have no competitors in the segment of `club wear', shirts that can be worn to a nightclub, a pub; basically, appropriate for a well-dressed evening. "We found that most casual wear brands have become relaxed formals and graduated to office wear, so there was no value addition in that segment. We aim to fill the crucial gap in the evening wear segment," he says. The brand offers shirts in a range of Rs 800-Rs1300; in Imraan Surve's term `real prices': dual-tone, dark colours at Rs 1,175, furry denims (the publicists call it a `techno fabric, a rage in the US and Europe') at Rs 1,085, satin stretch shirts with retro pints and `shimmer and sparkle', all roughly within the range.

In my showroom visit (South Extension, New Delhi), I find that not all the Zod shirts have come in yet. The one I see, an attractive burnt orange, with a soft gleam, looks like a good party option. Other brands, which cover the whole spectrum, are fighting for visibility, as well. The latest Allen Solly shirts are decked out in summer colours, pale and pastel; there are a few in bold designs, perfect for beachwear. Color Plus offers shirts in the `finest Giza cotton', in cool, unobtrusive checks. Raymonds strikes a chord with its warm yellows and ochres. And an intrepid brand has come out with shirts, which it claims will lower your body temperature by 5 degrees C!

I ask David Abraham, one of the designer duo of Abraham and Thakore, what he thinks of the men's shirts available in the country. And he is unequivocal in his response that they are `highly wearable'. He buys a lot of his shirts abroad, but he finds that on the whole, Indian brands keep abreast of the trends in the West.

"Currently, you can see short sleeves and quite trendy proportions, as opposed to the big and loose fit tucked into pleated trousers, that used to be de rigeur some time back. "It is only now that the young urban Indian male has begun to be `fashion-led', which has forced the big brands into diversifying their range and becoming `technology-led', with an accent on experimenting with a mix of fabrics and cuts. Men's wear led the revolution in ready-mades in India," he says, "even if we still have a long way to go to reach a design-led multi-level market, like in the West, where the top-end designers come up with different labels to suit the bottom-level K-Mart customer as well as the Armani shopper."

There's not much you can do with the colour palette for men's shirts, in his opinion (he confesses he hasn't seen the yellows and the mauves out there on the shelves these days). What needs working on, he says, is a `better silhouette'.

The author can be reached at Shubhrag@vsnl.com

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