Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail now owns stakes in Sabyasachi, Tarun Tahiliani and Shantanu and Nikhil

India’s biggest designers are signing up with billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s fashion arm

Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail is spreading its reach in the high-fashion designer market

ABFRL has partnered with ace designer Tarun Tahiliani

With the partnership, the duo will now launch a men’s ethnic wear brand.

Tarun Tahiliani will also give away 33 per cent stake in his existing luxury couture business to ABFRL

In the new entity, Birla will own 80 per cent stake.

The announcement comes weeks after ABFRL picked up a 51 per cent stake in the label Sabyasachi

The Birla-owned company had bought the stake for almost INR 400 crore.

The fashion conglomerate also counts Shantanu and Nikhil in its designer stakes

In July 2019, ABFRL had bought 51 per cent stake in Finesse, the company that runs Shantanu & Nikhil, for INR 60 crore.

ABFRL had earlier invested in Jaypore and is betting big on ethnic wear

“We believe that over the next few years, ethnic wear is going to be an important category,” said Ashish Dikshit, Managing Director, ABFRL.

Interestingly, Walmart-owned Flipkart owns a 10 per cent stake in ABFRL

However, there are no details whether Flipkart can leverage ABFRL’s couture stakes.

ABFRL also houses brands like Louis Phillipe, Peter England, Allen Solly among others

It has 3,157 stores and as many as 29,900 multi-brand outlets in India