The House of Rose has been a foremost leader in the Indian luxury jewellery space and has slowly worked its way into the international scene. They have been doing private shows abroad for many years but took a leap during the pandemic and launched five shop-in-shops in Doha and Dubai. The concept is well accepted when it comes to international brands, but Biren Vaidya, Managing Director of the Rose Group of Companies, is keen to break these barriers on the home front, too.
Back in the early 2000s, Biren Vaidya wanted to start Rose as a retail brand that would be sold through shop-in-shops, but its time was yet to come.
Now 20 years later, it is all working out for the brand. Vaidya plans to disrupt the retail sector in India as well by launching shop-in-shops for his brand across other luxury stores. This is a sort of a wish coming full circle for Vaidya. He talks about cracking the code to create aspirational jewellery for the millennials and on leading the industry forward and expanding the brand.
In the last few years, Rose has pivoted towards targeting the younger generation. Could you tell us a little more about your business strategy?
In 2014, we were reaching a point where the average age of our client was getting to around 40. We found that we were not addressing the younger generation, primarily customers in the age bracket of 20 to 40. For our legacy to continue, we had to focus on the issue so that we could become a luxury brand for the new generation.
At the same time, we had the next generation of leaders in the family joining in – my niece Divya, daughter of my sister Poornima Sheth, who is the Founder of the Rose Group of Companies, and my younger son Karan. Divya looks after the operations and manufacturing and Karan looks after sales and marketing. During the pandemic, we realised that it was time to reach out to the new generation through their preferred media – the digital platform.
Our products also had to get younger, cooler, and more in alignment with the younger generation’s fashion aesthetic. After all, we are a luxury brand, and we need to create aspirational products for the new generation. So, we came up various fine jewellery collections with a retail price of Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 3.5 lakh – and all of these are doing extremely well.
How has your digital selling experience been so far?
Our digital journey has been fantastic. The growth has been phenomenal. Last year we had about Rs. 3.5 crore worth of sales influenced from the digital platform. In the last five months, we have already achieved double that number. It is gratifying to be a designer of Indian origin and be recognised across the world.
Could you tell us more about your new collections?
I had developed Rac N Stac for De Beers Forevermark some years ago, so we added more to that line and came up with something younger and cooler in the Commitment collection.
Rose is known for its coloured gemstones, so we launched Tivoli, a collection that is inspired by the ancient gardens of the Roman Empire and is the oldest garden that is still in existence today. We created a floral collection with the use of precious and semi-precious gems.
The contemporary and stylish collection Bella Rosa (Italian for a beautiful rose) is great for gifting and everyday wear. We have used Italian filigree and reconstructed gems to make the line bright, powerful, and young.
For a collection to become iconic for a brand it takes 8-10 years. It represents the brand, and the brand represents the collection … like Cartier’s love bracelet, Bulgari’s Serpenti, Van Cleef & Arpels’ Alhambra, and Chopard’s Happy Diamonds.
In the same way if you think of Rose, you will think of Colours of Life, our iconic high jewellery collection. We came up with some wonderful designs at very aggressive price points with gems in unique cuts. These are all sold on our website as well as in our stores in India and abroad.
Could you tell us about Rose’s expansion into the international market?
The sales team – my sister and Karan were able to make Rose available internationally as a brand in the last one year. We have five shop-in-shops – four in Doha and one in Dubai. These retail our high jewellery collections as well as fine jewellery collections. So out of seven points of sale, five are overseas and only two are in India. All are doing exceptionally well.
What is your strategy for the Indian market?
Having sold our products in these markets we realised that the brand is well recognised globally.
We have been manufacturing jewellery since 1981. Like Swiss and Italian brands, we want to have Rose shop-in-shops in luxury watch, clothes, and jewellery stores in the domestic market.
Both Divya and Karan believe in the potential in India and felt that it was an apt time to take it forward and launch the strategy at IIJS 2021, which took place in Bengaluru last month. We started off by talking to jewellery retail stores for the fine jewellery line and the response has been quite nice.
We are offering very aggressive commercial terms. Plus, we will give them all digital marketing support. We will also have events at their stores. The retail store will not have to worry about dead inventory when it comes to Rose. While there are retailers who are hesitant about the concept, the younger generation understands that this is one of the ways to do business and is open to it.
I think it will take 3-4 years to build on this concept. Rose has always led and not followed, and I believe we will lead this concept in India as well.