Raghavendra Rathore expands textile offerings through partnership with Ermenegildo Zegna

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Apr 3, 2019

Designer Raghavendra Rathore is expanding his brand’s textile offerings through a partnership with the luxury Italian fashion house Ermenegildo Zegna. Rathore also reopened his Delhi flagship store in DLF Emporio. 

Rathore recently re-launched his flagship store in New Delhi’s luxury DLF Emporio mall. The new store features Rathore’s range of furniture and has updated furnishings and a new layout. This store is one of the designer’s total of seven India flagships. Other locations include Jodhpur, Jaipur, Mumbai, and Surat.

“We’re trying to give customers an experience that’s a hybrid of bespoke and retail,” Rathore told Business Line about his new store concept. 

After a quarter of a century in the fashion industry, Rathore is also continuing to expand his eponymous brand’s offerings with the help of Ermenegildo Zegna and Reliance Brands Ltd, which acquired a stake in the brand in June 2018. Rathore aims to use the business’ resources to help him to expand his own business. 

“Having two big partners on board, has given us the financial depth to leverage a business model that is now completely unique to the brand,” explained Rathore.

“Access to fabric is a huge starting point, and the fact that Zegna has over 340 stores worldwide gives us a lot of potential to explore that,” Rathore told Business Line about his future plans. “Our focus now, is to give multiple choices of everything that makes a man’s wardrobe.”

Rathore is a member of Jodhpur’s royal family and designs modern interpretations of his family’s traditional angarkhas, achkans, and bandhgalas. The designer recently re-launched his line of women’s bandhgalas at Lakmé Fashion Week in Mumbai.

Rathore also runs the Gurukul School of Design in Jaipur. The fashion design school runs four-year programmes that aim to teach students how to run their own fashion house.