He received the Neiman Marcus Award for fashion twice, as well as eight Coty Awards for his high-quality ready-to-wear designs. His clothing is a mixture of imaginative design with a technical skill that separated him from many other labels. In many regards, it was Beene who truly became America's first major contributor to a mass production of ready-made fashions. At the time in Europe, mass-produced clothing was poor in quality and purchased only by those who could not afford designer clothing. Beene changed this by helping to make ready-to-wear chic. "Although he became known for such shapes as the bolero and the streamlining jumpsuit, and for proposing seemingly illogical combinations of fabric - the fancy with the naive - his real achievement was to address the three-dimensional quality of the body" (Schiro 1994).
In India, as little as two decades ago, the thought of buying ready-to-wear clothing at a major department store would have been totally alien to almost everyone in the country. Even in the 1980s, middle-class Indian housewives usually bought their fabric from a small neighborhood shop and brought it to local tailor, who hand fashioned it into a custom-made garment. However, in the late 1990s, India's significant economic expansion welcomed a retail revolution. A growing affluent middle class became a prime market for well-made and reasonably priced ready-to-wear clothing, and shopping in malls in cities, suburbs and small towns throughout the country turned into one of the most popular pastime (Reich 2006).
Kishore Biyani, CEO of Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd. (Pantaloon), India's largest clothing retail chain, is one of the leading figures who ushered in India's retail transformation. He helped grow India's brand new ready-to-wear retail clothing institution from just a very small number of clothing manufacturers to today's massive industry. From his business launch in 1967, with a pair of ready-to-wear trousers, he has grown a retail empire of over 2.4 million square feet with sales of approximately $266 million in 2004 (Reich 2006).
Biyani continually altered his business model...
"There isn't a single formula for success in India's retail market," explains Biyani. "The businesses that succeed are those with the biggest ideas and the right tools to execute them" (Reich 2006)
At the beginning of the 21st century, Biyani was only at the fringe of the fashion industry. Within four years, he completely built the business into its present expansion. He stated that his peers in the retail business were just copycats. "Most Indian retailers tend to blindly copy from Western models. I am looking for a pan-Indian model of retailing." He took major risks as he searched for the perfect business model, scaring away most of the financial lenders who wanted to deal with more conventional businessmen. As a result, professional managers and financial investors wrote him off and said he most likely would not succeed He proved them wrong by developing three highly successful retail formats: the Big Bazaar hypermarket; Food Bazaar, that straddles the food and grocery business; and his original Pantaloons apparel stores. (Rajshekar 2004).
References
Encylopedia Britannica Online. Pierre Balmain. 27 February, 2008. http://www.britannica.com/
Rajshekhar, M. 2004. The man they wrote off. Business World 23: p. 15.
Reich, K. 2006. Retail revolution. SAP 27 February 2008. http://www.sap.info/public/INT/int/prnt/PrintEdition-2706243d401ba642d0/0/articlesVersions-2706243d3f2b13aabe
Schiaparelli, Elsa Who's Who in the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press, 1999. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
A www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&ent%09ry=t47.e1444" http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t47.e1444
Schiro, a. 2004. Geoffrey Beene, innovator of American fashion, dies at 77. New York Times. 29 September, 2004, p. 34
