After the exceptional success in watches, accessories, fragrance and jewellery, to further its diversification in various sectors, Titan recently launched its first Taneira store in Pune. Spread across 3600 sq ft at Pushpak Park, ITI Road, Aundh, it is the seventh store by Taneira in India, but the first flagship outlet in Maharashtra.
The youngest brand from Titan Company Limited was launched in 2017 in Bengaluru. Later coming to Hyderabad, Delhi, and now Pune, Taneira has solid plans to open 10 more stores across India.
Taneira offers close to 3000 varieties of handcrafted sarees from over 70 regions across India to display the diverse textiles and craftsmanship of the country.
In Sanskrit ‘tan’ translates to ‘body’ and ‘eira’ is the name for the Indian deity Saraswati who is the patron goddess of art, music, craft and knowledge, while in Greek taneira stands for ‘earth’. Combining these concepts, the brand aims at providing rooted yet progressive Indian women with exclusive designs, diverse workmanship, and authenticity of handcraft, pure and natural fibres — the best of India under one roof.
Throughout the store, designed by Auroville-based Dharmesh Jadeja, who is also the founder of the design firm Dustudio, one can find motifs of a lotus. Explaining how the flower symbolises everything the brand stands for, Rajeshwari Srinivasan, chief operating officer, Taneira, says, “The lotus is the symbol of enlightenment. It is indispensable to the Indian culture, just like sarees.”
Dressed in a gorgeous saree with zari by the brand, versatile actress Shruti Marathe inaugurated the store. “Every woman looks stunning in a saree. Be it a festival or a get-together, a woman looks beautiful, elegant and confident in it. Taneira offers a range of sarees for women with different tastes, moods, and styles,” says she.
Starting with Rs 2000 and going up to Rs 2,00,000 and above, the store assures its customers a huge range of products with best quality and finishing. “The reason I am associated with the brand is because they deliver what they promise. They celebrate all women, in all their forms. It is not a compulsion for women to wear sarees, but we wear it because we love the garment,” Marathe says, adding, “The brand stocks sarees which can fit in your budget. And even if you don’t have the budget currently, it is worth saving for a while and buying it. I’m sure that these products will never disappoint you.”
For Titan, customer relation is vital. “For the last 32 years, the brand has been focussing on customer relationship. When customers go to the store for the second or third time, they look for something new. And we aim to bring it to them in one way or the other. It is a challenging yet very interesting process,” says Jaswanth Thomas, retail head, Taneira.
In the presence of so many online options, physical stores sometimes suffer. Speaking about it, Srinivasan says, “Digital options are convenient, but when cusotmers visit the physical store, they can touch and feel the fabric to decide whether to buy it or not. Tangibility and transparency is there. We create and define the product. We explain the designs, the process of making and the history behind every piece of clothing in the store. And we have ample amount of time to attend to our customers.”
For the ongoing festive season, the brand has launched a special collection titled Navya. It features yellow Kanjeevaram silks, green South silks, red Rajasthan silks, light green Banaras silks and beige Chanderi silks and many more vividly-coloured varieties. Along with this, they also have a collection of bridal and festive lehengas and a beautiful collection of stoles perfect for gifting.
The store offers customisation of a product as per the choice of the customer so that it appeals to the younger generation also. “The future is all about setting a strong footprint across India. We plan to work with different weaver communities across India as well as independent clusters to celebrate saree wearing in India. We also plan to enhance the categories we currently have,” says Srinivasan.
