irza Tanners Ltd has no intentions of heeding the saying, "A cobbler must stick to his last". Recently, the maker of popular shoe brands, Red Tape and Oaktrak, declared its intentions of getting into the apparel business.

The company, which has been creating and designing shoes since 1999, wants to promote itself as a full-blown fashion chain through the Red Tape Men's Fashion Stores starting December. The group plans to start with nine stores: four of them in Delhi, two in Lucknow and one each in Noida, Kanpur and Jaipur. Why made the company take this decision? "The idea was conceived a year ago based on a series of market research initiatives undertaken in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai leveraging the brand's trend and the market's pull," says Arvind Verma, general manager, marketing. Red Tape as a shoe brand is already selling in 17 countries worldwide. It plans to set up as many as 100 stores in India within the next three years.... more