BENGALURU: Reliance Retail is reshaping its fashion business around faster-moving private labels as it looks to win over India’s young shoppers, betting speed and control over its own brands will be critical as competition intensifies across apparel and lifestyle retail.
The shift is visible across its brands, such as Azorte and Zivame, where the retailer is speeding up product cycles, adding more trend-focused styles, and investing in tech-enabled store experiences for consumers who increasingly discover fashion through digital content and influencers.
The push reflects how Reliance Retail is adapting to a market where younger consumers are increasingly setting the pace of competition.
“India’s median age is 26. If you are in an aspirational category like fashion, lifestyle or beauty and you are not targeting this segment, then you are missing the obvious,” said Ankur Bisen, senior partner at The Knowledge Company. “This is the bread and butter segment, and it is extremely contested.”
Reliance Retail’s fast-fashion brand Azorte offers a glimpse of how the company is responding to that shift.
Homegrown fast-fashion choice
“When we launched Azorte, the focus was on building a brand as good as H&M or Zara, but homegrown,” Sara Fanning, creative head of Azorte, told Mint in an interview. “We were very fashion-focused and wanted to be bang on trend, in time with what you’d see internationally.”
Consumer feedback has helped the brand evolve and expand into various product categories, she said. The brand is now preparing to launch ‘AZ’, a youth-focused line aimed at teenagers and first-time fashion buyers, this month.
“There’s a big group of customers between the kids’ category and 18-plus who want something more exciting,” Fanning said. “So we’re launching a youth brand that’s younger and more dynamic, with price points that are accessible for students.”
Azorte was launched by Reliance back in 2022 with its first store in Bengaluru. It currently has 40 stores across the country.
The brand positions itself as a tech-driven experiential fashion brand. Its large-format stores within malls have smart trial rooms with adjustable lighting and digital interfaces, seamless checkout options and data-backed merchandising.
Competition and Gen Z
Younger Indian consumers are increasingly spoilt for choice, with a wave of digital-first brands competing through Instagram-led discovery, influencer marketing and rapid trend drops.
According to Bisen, the crowding is unprecedented. “Myntra alone carries almost 300 national and international brands on its platform. And that’s just brands, not counting its private labels,” he said.
Reliance Retail is not alone in sharpening its Gen Z focus. Rival retailers and digital-first brands are also doubling down on the cohort with dedicated sub-brands and platforms.
Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd has scaled up its youth-focused label “Owned” to tap value-conscious young shoppers. Myntra has carved out FWD, a separate Gen Z-dedicated storefront that curates trend-first brands and influencer-led drops. Venture-backed players such as Newme have built businesses entirely around rapid trend cycles and social media discovery, while Tata Group has tested youth-centric fashion propositions such as Burnt Toast. Reliance Retail also has Yousta which caters more to the value conscious young consumers.
“It is not about the strategy you think will work; it is about execution,” Bisen said. “Gen Z consumers are not linear in their thinking. They consume trends. For them, trend and content are more important than brand. They can jump from one brand to another depending on what aligns with the moment.”
“Brand affinity and long-term loyalty are weaker. Influencers, content and trend cycles shape buying choices much more strongly.”
Pricing and category expansion
While Azorte operates in the mid-premium segment, Fanning said the brand has consciously retained a wide price ladder.
“We didn’t want to skimp on quality just to hit a lower price point,” she said. “I can still offer a ₹399 T-shirt, but also a ₹3,999 dress that you’ll never want to throw away. There’s something for everyone.”
The brand is also looking to expand into athleisure, responding to customer demand for more versatile, everyday categories. The move reflects a broader shift in shopping behaviour, with consumers seeking comfort-led products that can be worn across settings rather than single-use fashion.
Unlike several fashion retailers that rely on a mix of in-house and third-party brands, Azorte operates entirely as a private-label business. Fanning said the brand does not plan to introduce external labels, instead expanding through in-house categories and sub-lines. This strategy allows the company to control design, quality and pricing while steadily building depth across categories.
Zivame refresh
A similar shift is underway across Reliance Retail’s innerwear brand, Zivame, reflecting how the retailer’s fashion portfolio is evolving across categories to remain relevant to younger consumers.
The brand was which was acquired by Reliance back in 2020 for $160 million, is also refreshing its product portfolio to cater to younger consumers without losing its core customer base.
“It’s generally said that generations don’t buy the same brand, but that’s not true for us,” said Kiruba Devi, chief operating officer, Zivame. “We still have our core consumers, and we have a new group completely joining us.”
As part of this shift, Zivame is expanding beyond lingerie into adjacent categories, including kids’ innerwear and more versatile sleepwear and loungewear.
“The line between sleep and lounge is blurring...We are moving towards products you can wear beyond the bedroom, we call it two-mile wear,” Devi said.
Technology continues to be a key differentiator for the brand, particularly around fit and personalization. Zivame’s data-led fit tools and cohort-based personalisation help reduce returns and improve repeat purchases, which account for about 60% of sales, Devi said.
“People come to us for specialization,” she added. “We specialize in fit, comfort and technology, and we have 15 years of data and loyalty behind us.”