MP Ahammed, Chairman, Malabar Group:
”Wedding season is pivotal for our business, with bridal or wedding jewellery constituting a significant share of our sales. During the ongoing wedding season this year, we are witnessing healthy demand for bridal jewellery across all our stores in India. The bridal jewellery pre-booking numbers are also quite encouraging due to our rate protection scheme. We expect a robust bridal jewellery season better than that of last fiscal year.
During the four-month period from November to February in the previous fiscal year, bridal jewellery contributed ₹3,923 crore, accounting for approximately 35% of our total revenue of ₹11,210 crore during that four-month period.
The ongoing transition of bridal jewellery designs captures the evolving sensibilities and choices of new-age brides. Brides across regions want their jewellery to reflect grace, poise and individuality. Be it chokers, necklace, naths, maang tikka or sheshpatti – each element of the bridal jewellery ensemble needs to be innovation-driven and design-enriched to capture the imagination of the modern-day brides. That’s why along with traditional gold necklaces now coexists layered and delicate necklaces accentuated with diamond or precious stones. Both timeless tradition and modernity add to the fluidity of the contemporary bridal jewellery design canvas. Through our immensely successful bridal jewellery campaign Brides of India, we have managed to develop a stronger connection with brides across regions and as per our findings, gold is now accentuated or combined with the playfulness of precious stones or diamonds to get the desired look – be it necklaces, earring, etc. A section of brides has been showing preference for polki, emeralds to exude individuality.”