Cut for Class

With an independent store in Miami,and top department stores such as Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue housing her designs,Danielle’s desire to take her eponymous eight year old label Eva Danielle to a wider,more global audience is understandable. But what had her friends confused was her decision to being her global expansion with a store in India. “We get a lot of that,people ask us ‘Why India? That’s so weird. Don’t they have enough clothes there,all the clothes in the US are made here anyway’,” says Danielle. What makes her unconventional decision even more bizarre is that she chose to place the first store not in the more glitzy Mumbai or Delhi,but in Pune,at Phoenix Market City,where the store was launched on Saturday. A city like Dubai,with its mature fashion audience and market,would perhaps have made more sense for an expansion. “But the market there is saturated. On the other hand,the fashion industry in India is still developing and there is so much potential,” she says.

She admits that initially the team had assumed that Mumbai and Delhi were the place to be,but on a closer look,they found that Pune had a lot of potential too. “Everything we read about the city told us that the demographic was young here and that these are the people who are breaking the mould,just like our line is,” says the Miami-based designer. She also intends to open branches in other metro cities such as Mumbai,Delhi and Bangalore soon,with the next store’s launch slated for later this year.

A discussion about her plans for the Indian line excite her,and she explains how each design will be one-of-a-kind,and will use fabrics and styles from across the world. “I like using styles and material from different countries,like laces from England or Belgium,silk from Italy and then combine them to make a collection. So for the Indian line,instead of using Indian embroidery,I’ll use more exotic designs and that’s what will make it unique,” she says. While her Indian collection is quite different from her other international collections,Eva Danielle favourites such as her reversible jackets,corsets and skirts will also be available at the Pune store,items that go beyond her target audience of 24 to 35 –year-olds,and can be worn by women of varying ages. “Like the reversible jacket; I can wear it,my mother can wear it and so can my grandmother,” she says.

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