INVISTA is everywhere. The labels of Lycra, one of its well-known fibres, are a common sight on the racks that sport branded garments in malls. Invistas fibres find way into the carpets you tread upon, in the car seats you sit upon or the pillow you sleep upon. Lycra is today mixed with denim to give stretchability to the jeans one wears. Its presence in apparels is legendary. Backed by strong R&D, Invista has been launching new fibres, which have unique advantages and are finding their way into daily & industrial uses.
In India, Lycra has become a household name. More Invista fibres are making headway. The company has been promoting the benefits of its fibres through revolutionary means – dashing shows & displays in mega cities last year. Avinash Chandra, Marketing Head-South Asia and Sasi Kumar, Business Head-South Asia, INVISTA were in Mumbai recently on one of their promotion shows. They spoke to Samuel Joseph, Editor of The Indian Textile Journal, in an exclusive interview on Invistas new launches and marketing strategies.
Excerpts:
On Performance in India
"Invista as a retail entity started in 2006, however our products have been selling in India for more than a decade. Initially we were primarily marketing Lycra fibre and then we started to launch some other products like Coolmax fibre, Thermolite fibre in the last 2 years time. Another product is the Tactel fibre, which has been again here for last couple of years. But what has happened is that in last 3 or 4 years time, we were really able to identify some consumer need gaps and we were able to launch products already which are focusing on consumers requirements. That has something which has given solid support to our overall sales in India. We have got new and new customers adding to our customer list every month. Our business is actually growing very, very rapidly. Overall, as a business we are doing really very well. Our business is extremely strong at this point of time."
On Applications of Fibres
"Any fibre type, there is a technical textile consumer application. It is all about the applications. For example, if you talk about the people in army, if they are wearing socks, they need to wear socks which are comfortable. So to be comfortable, a multiple things can be done. Obviously, stretch is one thing which has to be provided; otherwise it will be very difficult to keep the socks on the leg. For example, when you look at the soft top in a socks, a lot of people use rubber and many use spandex and what happens is that the soft top slips down and keeps on pushing pressure, and what happens is that after sometime you start to get marks and irritation on your legs. For this, we have the Lycra fibre called Lycra Soft Comfort fibre which is one fibre which has got a very, very slow recovery. What happens is that because of soft comfort property, the top in the socks will slowly come back and stay and it will not trouble you and the socks will last as long as you want. But the point here is that with Lycra fibre there has been a lot of innovations and different innovations focus on different application. So we are launching some of those innovations in India at a regular pace.
Moving to Coolmax and Thermolite, you can use them in technical textile and also in other applications. But what we believe is the Coolmax and Thermolite have a huge application on consumer side. The reason is that in some part of the country where it is really cold weather some of our fibres can provide the ultimate in comfort. Let us consider Coolmax, which provides moisture and breathability. Just imagine an youngster moving out in th