YOUNG AT 50: LAKME GETS A MAKEOVER
Sourish Bhattacharyya (HT City)

As the Business Head of Lakme Lever and the man who has turned around the image of a 50-year-old cosmetics brand wakme India Fashion Week, Anil Chopra has good reasons to be happy. He hasn’t seen many shows because his work keeps him away, but he’s delighted with the glitzy start given to the event by Delhi’s Anjana Bhargava. Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna’s show made him ask himself, “Who needs to shop abroad?” He felt Rohit Bal’s leather jackets were world-class. And he was struck by “the brilliance of execution” of the Sunsilk showcase of silver-screen hairstyles since the 60s.

“It’s amazing how what was a completely new idea two years back has come such a long way in such a little time. Today, the focus has moved away from controversies that are bad for the fashion business,” says the man who lords over 42 products and 223 colours and shades, and, together with Elle 18, controls 52 per cent of the Rs 250-crore cosmetics market. But has the going been good for Lakme’s business in a market where women still wear cosmetics mainly for special occasions?

Last year in Mumbai, Chopra points out, Lakme launched Shimmer Shine Sparkle with endorsements from designers Rohit Bal, Rina Dhaka and Manish Malhotra, and its sales jumped by 26 per cent, post-Fashion Week. The experience has spurred Lakme to unveil its Think Brilliance line of cosmetics at the Fashion Week for a September launch. It’s also getting into the business of marketing crystal tattoos in 40 designs custom-made by Swarovski Components. The tattoos appear to have fired the imagination of the city’s Pretty Young Things, for on the inaugural day of the Fashion Week, over 500 women decided to flaunt them.

For Lakme, all these initiatives add up to one take-home message – that cosmetics are meant to be worn on all occasions. If that becomes the fashion of the times, it’ll drive the growth of the cosmetics sector fast enough for it to come within the shouting distance of the Rs 800-crore skincare industry. That, precisely, is the business agenda of the Lakme India Fashion Week.