A new academic year is around the corner for schools students. This is when parents start worrying about new uniforms for them. In Visakhapatnam, most parents head toHirawats, a city-based clothing store.
“Your child wears the uniform for over 250 days in a year. We make sure the uniforms are comfortable and affordable,” says 90-year-old Triloke Hirawat, founder of Hirawats. In 1954, he started as a small retail store near Poorna Market. It was one of the first ready made clothing shop in the city.
Today, there are eight stores in the city and the third generation of the same family is looking after it. Hirawats supplies uniforms to over 1000 academic institutions and also more than 250 corporations. The business also employs nearly 300 people. foot in the business which employs around 300 people in the city.
Watch and learn
A job in the mining industry got Triloke to Visakhapatnam from Churu , Rajasthan as a 21-year-old. He earned about ₹150 per month. He would visit relatives at Vizianagram in the weekends and spend most of his time at his uncle’s clothing store.
In the process, he picked up how the ready-made clothing stores work. “I learnt that the profit margins are quite high and in Visakhapatnam, there weren’t many players who could deal with bulk orders,” he said.
Three years later in 1954, along with three staff members, he opened the first Hirawat outlet in Poorna Market. By now Triloke could speak Telugu fluently. “Just like my uncle, I sourced ready-made pants and shirts from Kolkata,” he says. Gradually his catalogue grew and in matter of few years his inventory had grown to include casual wear too though school uniforms were the mainstay.By the end of the first year itself daily sales began to touch ₹200 regularly.
According to him, by the late 1950s most youngsters started wearing readymade clothes. However, the patriarchs still preferred lungis.
Adapt, improvise
Triloke says he had a clear monopoly until 1958. But by the early 1960s the city had several players in the ready-made garment segment . “This was when I realised Hirawat needed a distinct identity,” said Triloke. In 1968 he opened another store in Poorna Market which was originally a Mafatlal showroom.He also purchased 11 sewing machines, hired tailors and entered into the manufacturing business. “This allowed me make clothes the way I wanted to,” he says .
- They make over 6000 customised products from socks to coats.
- Their manufacturing unit is spread over six acres in the outskirts of the city.
- They also sell curtains, cushions and bed linens.
- Some of their clients in the city — The Gateway Hotel, Andhra University, Hindustan Petroleum, Vizag Steel Plant, Indian Navy, Four Points by Sheraton.
“Our products were well received. This store got so popular that customers started to call me Mafatlal,” he chuckles. Even today, you can see Mafatlal written on the board of the Poorna Market branch.
New blood, new brand
Things changed when his sons joined the family business. Big players like Vimal and Raymonds had started heavily investing in branding and advertising. The Hirawats realised it was time to sit up and change strategy.
They increased the manufacturing capacity and started producing their own fabric, invested in ads and branded their products. Today, when you buy a shirt here you will see even the buttons have Hirawats written on them. P Kanthi, a loyal customer said, “Both my children wore uniforms from Hiwarats. The only time we had to buy new uniforms were when my children outgrew them.”
