The city of France is the world’s largest centre of divine Fashion and passionate Love. Imbibe the two and you’ll see images of beautiful lace loved garments and lingerie flash in your eyes. Lingerie is an absolute piece of luxury that women and men adore uniformly around the globe. Needless to mention, the French Lingerie has ever evolved to be the most pristine and classic representation of the manners of eras. To this day, French Lingerie is a fancy to every one and not just for French women alone. Indian women too carve the French shades of Love.
Carrying forward the legacy, pure French Lingerie has already embarked the Indian market in blend of its grace, and briskness of Indian colours. The name is Agaline – a premium high end French Nightwear and Lingerie brand that caters to the modern Indian women. With a strong French identity, Agaline is a French touch to Indian innerwear on a segment that has big potential, but offers too less.
The Birth of Agaline
The women behind the idea are two French entrepreneurs who in the most ardent way sought to honour their country of adoption. Agathe de La Chapelle and Caroline Joire, the founders of Agaline have been in Indian for the past 5 years and were greatly moved by the Indian ethnic wear; The culture and colours were an element of rejoice. Yet, the duo weren’t satisfied with the kind of Lingerie that rendered contour to the elegant Indian women. Nor did they encounter match in the country to their own taste in Lingerie.
After having seen Indian women who seemed dissatisfied as well, the duo endeavour on the quest of creating a sophisticated yet comfortable collection of lingerie and nightwear to compliment the Indian women. Thus, 2013 witnessed the birth of Agaline in Delhi.
The Agaline Style
Agaline lingerie is purely driven by the French Fashion Eras that were predominant from the late 19th century to early 20th century. It was a joy full time in France filled parties, musical, theatre where arts flourished with vivacity. With styles like Cabaret popping up, this period is the main inspiration for Agaline styles. The cloths worn then, the fabric used at the time; “Agathe designed the collection according to that” says Caroline.
A much of a trigger was an enviable collection of precious old French laces, handmade from Calais and from Chantilly; a treasure Agathe had kept in the attic of the family castle in Burgundy. In addition to this, the Parisian look was inspirational phenomena. Agaline translates these beauties into their designs: elegant, delicate, qualitative, and impressive by its fashion style.
Therefore, the brand draws on a lot of lace which is a traditional fabric of France. They Region Lyon and Calais laces, and premium fabrics that are very famous for wedding dresses and lingerie. However, the collection still needed something more.
“We wanted to have an inbuilt French Collection so we decided to mix French designs with inspiration from India”.
Caroline recalls “We saw that India is a very colourful country so our French designs gain a lot of inspiration from India in terms of fabric and colours as well” So, there is an Indian touch felt with Cotton Silk fabrics in Agaline. And colours drifted from standard French beige and cream to Red is for bridal collection; Blackberry, coral, and sea colours added to the collection.
The Collection
Agaline launched its first Nightwear Collection in October 2014. The Belle Époque Nightwear Collection inspired by the eponymous era, includes a mix of sexy and elegant Nightwear, Loungewear items for day-to-day wear, items that women can wear inside as well as outside. The laces and precious fabrics are clubbed with designs inspired by the Parisienne, the ultimate elegant French woman. The collection is something a women will love to wear in private as well as public rendezvous.
The Agaline Spring Summer lingerie collection called Belle Époque was launched in March 2015. It is made with cup bras, triangle bras as well as strapless bras. It too is driven by the Belle Époque era when Paris became synonymous to glamour and everyone would crave for an evening at Le Moulin Rouge or for a show in Lido!
In these forms the brand presents an ode to femininity, a figure of desire, as elegant with sophisticated simplicity. They are crafted for modern Indian women who appreciates fine designs as well as qualitative products. The Agaline woman is known for her style, her self-confidence, but still believes in the importance of family values.
Primarily, The company’s main target have been the upper-class women who have travelled and know the difference in terms of quality in innerwear and lingerie, and who are used to wearing these items, and thus look for it.The collection come in 4 sizes, from S to XL and are made using cotton silk, silk, light Polycrepe. The are all French designs, qualitative fabrics and fine laces which are not available in the market yet.
The Agaline Spree
Up till now, the brand has receive quite good response in the market. Their collection is for all but they’ve has a list of bride-to-be clients. “Especially because, as of now women in India are buying more beautiful Lingerie and willing to spend more when they are getting married. Also, If a bride to be is buying a product once then she’ll come back to us. That kind of a way to reach the customer ” says Caroline. They have received clients through word of mouth, through the wedding planners they work with, from the exhibitions they participate in.
“We had especially a good response on our knitwear, which is comfortable and that we have in different colours for all tastes“
Being a designer brand, Agaline is very selective with its distribution channels, catering to women who are looking for unique pieces. They sell on websites such as 21Roses, Intimate Street and Trovea. They are also distributors for Intimate Street boutique in New Delhi. A very interesting concept that defines them is their fabulous Lingerie Showers. Agaline, in a very Victorian fashion, conducts private sales mostly: “We go to the clients’ home and show to her and her friends the collection – they can then try the items in the intimacy of their home and get fitting advice from our team”. The brand is hoping to extend its reach through tying up with e-commerce sites like Jabong.
About their a new collection, Caroline reveals “We are bringing a new collection of nightwear with new designs and products, we will for example introduce sexy jumpsuits, long night dresses, bi-colour dresses and shorts, as well as new concept called: my lingerie is going out! We will offer cute lingerie tops to wear under a sheer shirt, or to show under a top with open buttons. These items will bring a touch of sexiness and elegance to any outfit!” They are currently one of a kind, super premium brand in Indian with niche market.”In terms of prices, our competitors could be La Senza or M&S, but their objective is different. We provide exclusive pieces on a certain quantity, and not to the mass” states Agathe.
Agaline’s wings are not just confined to India. “We have international buyers, especially in France, Client in Sweden, Italy. We have a few orders in Dubai also.” They are developing the sales abroad like in Middle-East or Europe. Having unleashed its spirit, the brand is ready to flow with their energy, colours, vision.
Their Drive
The concept of Indo-French Lingerie brand came as a response to the evident fact that Indian women did not have the perfect lingerie to complement their elegant and beautiful garments. Thereafter, arouse Agaline with French roots and oriental inspirations.
“We truly believed that Indian women were not given the lingerie they deserve.”
Caroline and Agathe had contemplated focusing their new brand into bags and dresses. “but instead we found we had the opportunity to do something different, something that was not the creation of a need, but an actual need.” says Agathe. The Lingerie industry appealed more an option to the entrepreneurs as it offers them the opportunity to do a lot of things without actually having to show the product.
Caroline marks their core saying “Lingerie is secret of a women. And it is nice to bring women a lot of self confidence, attestation and make them feel better about themselves; Bring some new thing that they’ll only buy for them self without anyone’s judgement about it. It’s only for you, and your partner sometimes. It is not the same when you buy a dress or pants. There, you have to restrict yourself sometimes. You can’t wear those cool yellow pants to office. But you can wear anything in Lingerie, any way, for your own purpose. You can do what ever you like about it”
Agaline summed up to a juncture that professed good Lingerie for beautiful women because that’s something they deserve. The company believes that right now the Indian Lingerie market is subjected to only a few similar products. Therefore, they are trying to bring some new designs, new products, little bit innovation, anything that is found in Europe but not available in India. “We use a lot of Lingerie as a French woman, like under tops and under dresses. And we want to absolutely bring that here. It is totally missing here. For example, if you have a little transparent shirt or T-Shirt, you need to have a tank top under it. The tank tops that you find here are really basic. You could have a beautiful French under top instead and it’ll make for a beautiful garment. Now that’s also Lingerie.”
After arranging the Fabric for the lingerie which is shipped in from France and Italy, and purchasing lace from traditional French lace makers. These women had to attain precision from the manufacturing units in India. Certainly, their journey had been a difficult in quest to introduce premium Lacy Lingerie in a country that has just started to accept Lingerie as a piece of Luxury. Nonetheless, they keep their confidence intact to bring Indian women just that. Agaline is a Lingerie brand to keep an eye on.
