Reflecting a rapidly growing consumer base and an increasingly powerful manufacturing sector, India is increasingly becoming a focal point for the fashion industry. Making it the sixth-largest in the world, India’s apparel market will be worth $59.3 billion in 2022 according to reports. Several new and upcoming Indian players have been innovating to build on this momentum. One such unique company is HAY!, a ‘Fibre to fashion’ brand that has established its footprint in the Indian fashion & apparel sector. The HAY! Concept is based on an alliance between a quality product with an original design and a coherent and unified brand image.

Founded in 2020, the brand envisions dressing the modern, urban woman for her daily needs. Creating exquisite ethnic wear of exceptional quality for women, Hay! is a LIVA accredited brand that provides unique designs and silhouettes with over 150 designs every season.

The foundation of the company was laid by a curious entrepreneur, Harinandhini Sangeeth, Managing Director & Creative Head, HAY! Clothing. “Hailing from a textile background, I was always curious about clothing from a very young age. Being a greige manufacturer, I wondered what was done with all the fabric that we shipped,” says Harinandhini. She consequently realised that every fabric was converted into beautiful dresses. As an end consumer, she felt that there are a lot of missed opportunities in the aspects of fashion that motivated her to create her

brand. With clothing, she wanted to convert her dream to a reality and that’s how HAY!originated. Today, the brand is breaking the stere otypical belief that “higher the price, better the quality”.

Timeless patterns and designs:
HAY! caters to dress up a complete ensemble for modern women which includes kurtis and bottom wear. Bottom wear comprises ankle leggings, churidar leggings, palazzo, kurti pants and harem pants. It has over 50 colours in the bottom wear segment with Fiber 2 Fashion-Vertically integrated unit.

The evolving fashion trends have paved a huge market in western wear

HAY! is also unique owing to its ‘Fibre to fashion’ concept which also serves as its biggest advantage. The vertically integrated unit from spinning to garment, helps the company to maintain the quality and reduce the markups. HAY! Procures all the greige fabric from its parent company Dhanalakshmi synthetics. The company engineers each design and pattern through its inhouse designing team. The LIVA tag attests to the quality of the garment and each garment is tested for colour bleeding, shrinkage and stitching defects to ensure that the customers get the best.

Building on the D2C advantage and the digital push brought about by COVID, HAY! utilises the opportunity to increase its brand presence and sales all over the world. Moreover, it also helped the company to get direct customer feedback to improve its future products.

Evolving Fashion Trends
The company has come a long way since it started its journey post the COVID induced lockdown in 2020. Its first store which was launched in October 2020, received an overwhelming response which encouraged it to open more stores. At present, it has ten EBO’s spread across various cities in Tamil Nadu. Apart from that, it has a strong social media presence.

The women’s ethnic wear market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.6 per cent by FY 2025. The salwarkameez/ kurti is the biggest segment within the women’s ethnic wear category contributing nearly 50 per cent of the market. Using this opportunity HAY! intends to open around 25 stores in the upcoming year with a target of 100 stores by 2025. The evolving fashion trends have paved a huge market in western wear. Therefore, plans are underway to introduce western wear soon too. The company plans to position itself as the one-stop destination for women. With this determination and goal, it is sure that HAY! will become a go-to brand for Indian women.