HOUSE OF STYLES

It doesn’t make high-profile ad campaigns, its owner does not entertain many interviews – and you’ll never see a range designed by celebrities. Nonetheless, it offers everything that makes your house a home. Vishnu Rageev R profiles this up-and-coming home couture brand.

Art and inspiration
An abundance of collections, a festival of colours, a mixture of East and West... this, of course, is Purple Orange. The Bangalore-based boutique offers traditional Indian designs with a modern twist, and even takes designs inspired by other countries and gives it the Indian twist. Be it material, colour, theme, or technique, there is something Indian about its products. Now, a year after its debut, the distinctive home couture store is set to foray into New Delhi and Mumbai. Meanwhile, it targets an exponential increase in its revenue in this fiscal.

“We believe that home furnishing is an extension of the soul, and we strive to create not just drapery but works of art as well. PurpleOrange amalgamates art with design to tell stories on textiles, and our stories are sensitive to seasons and international trends,” Raghav Bagaria, CEO and the man behind the store, propounds.

Currently, the two exclusive stores in Bangalore and Goa retail mostly silk home furnishings. So, when you walk into the cosy boutiques, your eyes are treated to brightly coloured cushions, throws and drapes in fine silk, each individually different from the other. Also, there is a lot of intricate embroidery and sequinned work on most of the designs, both in the traditional and contemporary collections.

Asked about the inspiration behind PurpleOrange, Bagaria says: “I noticed a void in the couture home furnishing market, and that was the inspiration behind setting up PurpleOrange.”

Art on the road
Here, a combination of product categories is chosen to best depict the story. Most of the collections are changed every month to provide customers with new varieties, and also avoid getting stagnant in the creative process.

About the bestselling product, Bagaria says: “It is the auto cushion cover (12x12 inches), part of the Art on the Road collection.This collection illustrates the uniqueness of Indian road transport with a touch of humour.”

Inspired by the transport system, the designs in Art on the Road take cue from various shapes including that of a lorry, an auto, and even a bicycle. In fact, the cushions are designed in such a way that the tyres are also a part of the cushion. That's not all; these cushions also come with vehicle registration numbers! The product line contributed 6.5 per cent of the total number of pieces sold last year.

The Fossil collection is another bestselling range in the portfolio. Bagaria explained the motif: “Inspired by the art of kalamkari block printing, Fossil has been derived as a classic collection with rich teak woodcarving and rustic silks. Conceptualised with the idea of closures, the carved wooden buckles add a touch of romance to this range.”

There is a range that harks back to the Mughal era. Cushions here are embellished with rich embroidered necklines, like in the classic angarkha. Then there is the O'Saga collection inspired by the “land of the rising sun”, Japan. Here, one gets to see a lot of work in circular motifs.

“We also bring luxury into the soft furnishing market, by using cashmere as a fabric base. The Cashmere collection, knitted in luxurious cashmere yarn, has house robes for both men and women, along with cushion covers and throws,” Bagaria informs.

PurpleOrange does not source its products. Relates Bagaria: “We source textiles and other raw materials from national and international markets, and then design these into luxury home furnishings. We also have plans to foray into the furniture segment, wherein we will associate with a manufacturer to design high-end furniture with a textile component.” Currently, PurpleOrange offers exclusive home décor and bedroom furnishings.

Retail innings
Offering an increasingly greater variety of inventory, PurpleOrange is reaping a 15 per cent month-on-month increase in sales. Apart from its two exclusive stores, the brand is also retailed through speciality retailers like Amethyst in Chennai and Prana in Kolkata. With plans to roll out in New Delhi and Mumbai, PurpleOrange is also looking for retail space in speciality lifestyle retailers in Hyderabad and Pune.

“The brand has not experienced any direct competition. On an average, more than 20 people visit the boutiques everyday, and the conversion rate is also high,” Bagaria claims. The company recently started exporting to China and Taiwan under the PurpleOrange brand name.

The brand undertakes at least two custom-made projects every month for luxury homes and hotels. For something more exclusive, one can talk to the designing team at PurpleOrange, which is open to doing up the entire home, office, or even hotel. The company even collaborates with architects and interior designers, and even the clients themselves for a specific transformation of their spaces.

As Bagaria explains, “Increasingly, sophisticated customers have designed bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms modelled after what they have seen in the course of their European vacations. That desire to re-create memorable travel experiences has nurtured a desire for great-looking, well-made furnishings in a lush garden context – especially at the high end.

The brand boasts of a unique design studio to create new inventories in home fashion. “We are en-route to creating a niche audience, and, at the same time, attempting to educate the potential audience on how far a soft furnishing product can be stretched. We will continue to innovate and provide consistent quality in line with our couture tag,” assures the obviously confident CEO steering his product through branded lanes.