Textile Value Chain talks with Mr. Sunil Majithia, Secretary, Mumbai Textile Merchants’ Mahajan at their Fabric Fair.
What was the inspiration behind the fair? And how is the response so far?
We got this fair’s idea with discussion among me and my colleagues, Bhavesh Godhadiya, Divesh Panchmatiya, Anand Kothari, Anand Sarda. We started doing fairs one year back, and after getting tremendous response to first fair, this is our second fair in less than a year. This fair is unique in its own, as you can see, typically in this type of AC German hangers, we have seen film awards, photo exhibition and in non-AC hangers we have seen politician rallies. But this is the first time anyone has done fabric fair or merchants show in this type of venue.
Our exhibitors have got a good footfall, around 7 to 8 thousand visitors have visited the exhibition in these one and half days and even now registrations are ongoing.
How COVID had affected the first exhibition and what challenges you faced as an organizer?
Our first exhibition happened in Sahara Star, we had booked the venue amidst the ongoing pandemic, but the government had relaxed some regulations. It was scheduled for January 2021. But as the pandemic severed, we delayed it for June end. But again, the pandemic severed and we pushed the dates to June 2022. But as the fair was happening after long pandemic years, we as organizers as well as exhibitors got good response and due to the overwhelming demand, we had to do the fair for second time in less than a year.
What is your goals behind this fair?
We organized this fair with the aim of boosting Mumbai market for traders, we have only allowed merchants from Mumbai to participate in the exhibition. We also got enquires from other parts of the country, but we refused.
You said, this fair is to boost Mumbai market, can you please elaborate more?
Mumbai is a vast and diverse market; each market has its own specialty. Currently, traders are saying that they are not getting business in Mumbai. But we should remember that the Mumbai was, is and will be the fashion hub of the country. Whatever new innovations and designs developed in Mumbai, spreads throughout the country.
Our intention is not to downgrade other markets within the country, but we aim to grow Mumbai’s market.
With this fair, the local merchants are benefiting, do you have any plans to market this fair at International level?
In this fair, last year, we saw many store lines, but not garment merchants as it was our first fair. But as we can see in this fair, the garment merchants are also participated and has shown a lot of interest.
Secondly, we are in touch with an organizer from UK, and they are insisting on the collaboration with MTMM. With this collaboration, the participants from both countries will get international exposure in UK and India. We will inform of any further updates.
This is the second fair by you in less than one year? What will be the frequency of fairs in the future?
First we have decided to host the fair twice in a year. But due to increasing numbers of other fairs in cities like, Surat, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi and other organizations show in Mumbai, the fairs frequency is very high. And as we know, that anything in excess reduces its value. So now we have decided to do the fair annually. With this fair we will give exposure to big firms as well as smaller firms so all can grow together.
With more and more participants and visitors coming in the exhibition, what can they expect new in the next editions?
As said earlier, Mumbai is a fashion hub, in the first fair, we had around 55-60 exhibitors, and they received such a tremendous response that 70-80% of exhibitors participated again. Now in this fair, we have around 100 exhibitors. In the future, we will do this show on much bigger level and we are also encouraging participants from other sectors of industry so the textile industry can grow together.
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