"Lifestyle shops" sell elegance!
By Vimla Patil

WITH no less than the Millennium Star, Amitabh Bachchan himself, inaugurating Mumbai’s latest ‘lifestyle shop’ called Abracadabra, the limelight of publicity has turned once more to the new breed of exclusive stores. These new shops store bric-a-brac of great variety and help beauty and style seekers to make their homes or personal workplaces into islands of colour and elegance. Such stores are rapidly mushrooming in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Calcutta, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad where businesspersons, corporate executives and professionals form a huge upwardly mobile and affluent chunk of the emerging middle class which has an ever-increasing ability to spend. "Such shops are unique and innovative", says Prakash Thandani, whose shop specialises in making cushions and other accessories, "I have been in this business for a decade and the thirst for beautiful things in the home has been increasing with each year. I specialise in ‘comfort’ value additions to a home. This year, we have marketed a ‘bed rest’ cushion for women who wish to sit on the floor to nurse a baby or to watch TV. Surprisingly, I find that in many traditional but rich families, women do not sit on a sofa or a settee along with the husband and this back-supporting cushion does wonders for them.

"Earlier, the role of producing and marketing such decor-enhancing objects was assigned to the government — both central and state — through the handicrafts emporia, showrooms of the cottage industries, outlets of khadi and village industries and smaller crafts centres run by government supported co-operatives. The apex co-operatives harnessed the skills of craftspersons and created artefacts based on traditional items. Printed or dyed linen, wood carving and laquerwork, pottery, jute items and carpet making were promoted. These items, in their traditional form as well as in somewhat improved shapes and colours, were brought to city emporia and sold to tourists and local connoisseurs. However, though these outlets had strong governmental support and a national network, they had a limited vision and lacked freshness of design over a period of time. There was little experimentation or exploration of new concepts and the standard of the products was not improving fast enough to meet world standards. The presentation also needed a new impetus. Also, the hunger of people for beautiful things around the home increased by leaps and bounds to such an extent that government emporia alone could not satisfy their needs.

"Today, people are prepared to spend good money for upgrading their homes but they want quality and reliability in the goods they buy. Fast colours, good workmanship, excellent finish and good taste are a must if a product is to sell. Seeing this need for custom-made or personalised decor items, private companies and designers have opened their own outlets and studios where exclusive novelties are available", says Thandani, whose repertoire comprises 2000 quilted, embroidered and shaped cushions at any given time, in addition to potpourri, foot rests and lamp shades.

One of the earliest ‘lifestyle’ shops, owned by architect Hema Sankhalia and NRI Vina Mody, has been popular with home decor enthusiasts since 1962. "Here, under one roof, we offer several indigenous arts but in a complete form. For instance, our buyers do not have to visit five shops to assemble a table lamp. It’s all done here and the variety is really attractive. Our designers travel to villages all over India, checking out crafts, modifying designs, creating new uses for traditional items and forming new shapes out of old materials. We offer glassware from Firozabad, mobiles from Bengal, rugs from Uttar Pradesh, wooden items from Karnataka, table or bed linen from Rajasthan, wrought iron novelties and candles to challenge the imagination of all beauty-lovers. We have new collections each season and we add new crafts each time we identify new skills. We have created a class of connoisseurs for crafts merchandise, which looks for unique objects and a breath-taking way of displaying them. Our showrooms are full of inspiring displays", says Hema Sankhalia, who herself travels to source out elegant lifestyle products.

New to Mumbai is a Delhi shop which offers exquisite handmade pottery and dinnerware, glassware, table accessories, linen, candles and flower vases. The colours used in these promise to ‘bring life’ into every home. Elegance is the keyword of creation here. "Our products are serene like nature and ever new like the changing seasons. Our collections change to reflect the summer, the monsoon and the winter in India. Each product is linked to the soil of India and is always environment-friendly", says owner Anita Lal, who is a Delhi-based designer.

More inclined to selling textiles, Zeba, with designer Chelna Desai, and Takete Malema in Mumbai, sell the co-ordinated look for bedrooms, drawing and dining rooms with painted pots lampshades and linen with cushions.

How has his trend gained such an incredible momentum? Why has the market for well-designed and perfectly made crafts multiplied so dramatically? There are many interesting reasons for this mini-revolution. Television is one of the main factors.

The burgeoning channels with international programmes show how people all over the world make beautiful homes and use crafts to create peace, colour and energy in their surroundings.

Millions of viewers learn from the small screen and want to emulate the styles. India, the home of innumerable crafts, provides fodder to their search and new products emerge in the market to attract them. Secondly, the growing middle class has awakened, like some slumbering giant, to the need for beauty in every sphere of life. People who earlier bought gold or saved their money for a rainy day, now feel the urgent need to live in a beautiful home of which they are proud. There is a constant search for upgrading one’s lifestyle and one feels that one deserves some comfort and luxury. There is more money in the hands of the middle class, as most families have two or more incomes coming in. More money, coupled with the need to emulate upper class elegance, draws these people to decor shops. The competitive edge makes them buy from better stores and the market works on the well-worn theory of demand and supply. While the rich hire expensive interior designers, the higher middle class home-makers resort to buying semi-exclusive but well-made crafts to bring elegance to their urban habitats or country cottages. The last but most important factor for the growth of "lifestyle shops" is the growing level of education among women and their exposure to and experience of elegant lifestyles around the world. Women travel more than ever before and because of their working or social life, meet a variety of people from various walks of life. Being natural home builders, they bring new ideas into their homes to seek beauty and thus become patrons of ‘lifestyle shops’. With the help of such shops, they can easily become amateur home decorators themselves!

It is no wonder then that this surge in the decor market has brought about a rare and welcome combination of trained designers and traditional craftspersons. This unique merging of talent with experience has resulted in a wealth of products which please the eye and create a sense of enrichment and progress among home-makers!