Lifestyle to spin off Melange into exclusive brand

Department store chain Lifestyle will let private label Melange fly solo this year, reports Sarah Jacob from Bangalore. The ethnic wear label, which clocked 100-crore revenue in three years since its inception, will be spun off as exclusive brand outlets. Lifestyle, which earns 40% margins on its private labels, is the second retailer after Future Group to spin off private labels into exclusive brand stores. Future Group launched its mid-priced men's private label, John Miller, as a stand-alone brand in 2008.

"John Miller had grown from a private label to a private brand," Indus League Clothing CEO Rachna Aggarwal said. Indus League Clothing manages John Miller, which has six exclusive stores across South India and the eastern states, and now plans to double the store count this fiscal. Exclusive brand stores enable higher impulse sales in categories such as accessories as the consumer does not have other brands to compare with. Retailers tend to expand their range under a private label to tap this. These labels are often priced lower even while expanding on their own.