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CZECH REPUBLIC: Shoppers get attracted to foreign apparel brands

PRAGUE: The Czech clothing brands Bushman, Pietro Filipi, Kenvelo, Wait, Loap, Time Out have a trendy foreign name that evokes a worldly fashion stronghold. These brands are not any less trendy than their western competitors and oblivious Eastern European consumers are left in blissful ignorance about who is behind the clothes they wear.

When communism fell in 1989, Czechs demanded western brands. "What was imported from abroad had quality. Czech brands were not as valuable," says marketing professor Marie Pribova. A lot of people thought that what is Czech is bad.
The entrepreneurs behind the local apparel startups were well aware of that.

In the late 1990s, surveys found that Czechs have returned to proven local brands when shopping for groceries and housekeeping products, Pribova says. But when they buy clothes they are still likely to prefer the allure of a foreign brand.

"The name evokes the country that is typical for the product," Pribova says. "Fashion must be French. Shoes must be Italian. Those brands that evoke reputation in the field have an advantage. Companies from those countries must know what they are doing."

"Eight, nine years ago people were certainly hungry for anything from the West," says Tomas Chotebor, in charge of outdoor sports brand Loap, which buyers often consider Swedish or British.

Young people are not "so Americanized and pro-western" any more but it is too late for a radical change. "We will keep rolling on the same track," he says.

And so while the home-grown apparel brands with a foreign look are careful not to lie outright about their origin, they are doing their best to keep it quiet.

While some home-grown mass-market brands employ talented local designers. They mostly get their clothing lines produced in far-flung cheaper Asian factories.
Over the years, many have opened shops across the former communist bloc conquering markets overlooked by the western brands.

Source: Agencies • News Courtesy: BharatTextile.com