Bengaluru: Tata Group's Trent Ltd is winding down its Utsa stores after the affordable ethnicwear format failed to generate sufficient sales and profitability to justify a standalone store chain, according to four people familiar with the matter. From a peak of over 20 stores about two years ago, the count is already down to four, with shutters on another one coming up soon.
The brand was initially a sub-brand within Westside’s ethnicwear portfolio, offering affordable kurtas, kurta sets, salwar suits and dresses, largely in the ₹1,000– ₹3,000 price range.
“The company decided to launch standalone Utsa formats after seeing huge demand for the label across its Westside stores and also an attempt to capture the broader ethnicwear market share,” said one of the people mentioned above. The first standalone store was opened in Pune in 2019.
There are currently four operational standalone Utsa stores: in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram. The one in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad is set to shut down by 15 September, according to one of the above people familiar with the matter. Mint could not independently verify whether the remaining three stores will also be shut down.
Trent did not respond to Mint’s emailed queries.
The company has never formally disclosed the number of Utsa stores in its reports. However, according to a 27 June 2025 analyst report by HDFC Securities, Utsa had 22 stores across 12 cities in FY24, up from 17 stores across five cities in FY23. The network subsequently declined to 20 stores across 13 cities in FY25. The average Utsa store size was estimated at 2,000–3,000 sq. ft.
“Utsa wasn’t generating enough sales to justify a standalone store chain, and its store-level profitability wasn’t strong enough. There was also a degree of overlap with Westside, which offered customers much greater variety under one roof. The company was not very happy with Utsa as a brand or a store, and the decision was to draw it down,” said two of the above people.
Some Utsa stores are now being replaced by Burnt Toast, a youth-focused lifestyle brand, stores at some of these locations, according to two of the people mentioned above. Details on these numbers or their locations were not given.
The pullback comes despite the size of the opportunity. Women's wear accounted for about 40% of India’s ₹5.8 trillion apparel market in FY24, with ethnicwear making up 60–65%, according to a CRISIL MI&A report. The women’s ethnicwear market is expected to reach ₹3.6–3.7 trillion by FY29, growing at 9-10% annually.
That makes the segment an attractive battleground for organized retailers, particularly ahead of the festive and wedding season, when ethnic and occasion wear typically sees a seasonal uplift in demand. Trent, however, is facing competition across price points from established players, including Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail’s W, Aurelia and Jaypore, as well as Reliance Retail’s ethnicwear offerings and digitally-driven brands such as Libas. Aditya Birla Fashion says its ethnic portfolio generated over ₹2,200 crore in annual revenue in FY26 and added more than 80 stores during the year. Libas, meanwhile, has expanded to more than 50 stores across 15-plus cities, besides its online business.
“Utsa had no clear moat," said Sandeep Abhange, research analyst, consumer & midcaps at LKP Securities. “Westside already covered the same customer, price point and category, leaving little incremental market and risking cannibalization… Its sales per square feet were not enough to cover rentals, while the narrow basket limited frequency. It was the wrong format for the right opportunity.”
He said new Utsa racks are also not being spotted at Trent stores; "what remains is largely sale inventory”.
Trent has, however, not entirely abandoned the ethnicwear opportunity. It launched the Samoh brand in 2023 as a more premium, elevated occasion-wear proposition, positioned above its mass and affordable fashion formats. Samoh’s current assortment includes kurtas and sets priced at around ₹2,000– ₹7,000, while the brand describes itself as catering to customers seeking sophistication and luxury in occasion wear.
Trent's Utsa pullback is a reminder of the hit-and-miss nature of Trent’s strategy of incubating multiple retail concepts as it builds what it describes as a “house of brands”. Chairman Noel Tata has set an ambitious target for Trent, saying in 2023 that he saw the company becoming 10 times its then size, a goal he reiterated in June 2026. For context, Trent's consolidated revenue has grown 2.4 times, from ₹8,242 crore in FY23 to ₹20,074 crore in FY26.
Trent's format spread
Trent’s experimentation with smaller formats goes back well before Utsa.
In 2005, it acquired a controlling stake in Landmark, a books-and-music retailer that it later repositioned towards a broader family-entertainment and lifestyle proposition. In 2007, Trent became the master franchisee for Sisley, Benetton’s premium fashion brand, but the business struggled with profitability and was eventually wound down. In 2008, it launched Fashion Yatra, a value-fashion format aimed at Tier-2 and -3 towns, but shut it by FY12 after it continued to incur losses.
Landmark was subsequently reworked as Landmark Xcite in 2020, with a focus on toys, sports merchandise, tech gadgets, books and stationery, and later evolved into Xcite/Misbu, with Misbu targeting beauty, personal care, accessories and lifestyle products.
Trent continues to test newer concepts. Its youth-focussed Burnt Toast was launched in 2025, while POME is the company's lab-grown diamond venture. The three newer formats, Burnt Toast, Samoh and POME, remain in incubation, with Trent indicating that investment will be linked to customer acceptance and store-level economics, rather than aggressive expansion.
The contrast is particularly stark with Star, Trent’s grocery business, where the company continues to see a large opportunity despite the format’s slower growth. Star added five stores in the June quarter, taking its network to 86 stores across 12 cities. Own brands now account for more than 73% of its sales, while Trent has said it plans to accelerate Star’s additions to 25-40 stores a year.
At Trent’s June 2025 AGM, Noel Tata had said Star had the potential to become larger than both Zudio and Westside, arguing that the food market was much bigger than the clothing market. The comment underlines the scale of Trent’s ambitions beyond fashion, even as the company continues to prune concepts that fail to achieve sufficient scale. Zudio and Westside are Trent’s flagship fashion retail formats, with the former positioned as value fashion and the latter as a more premium brand.
Tata, who turns 70 in November, had announced at Trent’s June AGM that it would be his last as chairman, in line with the Tata Group’s retirement policy for non-executive directors.
As of 30 June 2026, Trent had 301 Westside stores and 982 Zudio stores, including seven in the UAE, alongside 29 other lifestyle stores. It added one Westside and 19 Zudio stores on a net basis during the June quarter. Consolidated revenue rose 17.8% year-on-year to ₹5,754.7 crore, while net profit rose 22% to ₹518.1 crore.