Welcome to the busiest time of the year! This indeed is an exuberant time for all of us at the retail fraternity. This is the season that morphs India to its brightest and most jubilant avatar of the year with every calendar week dotted with festivals, celebrations and weddings. It is the time the entire nation comes together to feast, pray, share love and above all fl aunt resplendent ethnic fashion. Ethnic wear is an intrinsic part of the festive season. Infact, traditionally, ethnic wear was solely reserved for festivals. But, in the recent years, the category has evolved in massive proportions, especially the women’s section. Keeping pace with India’s massive strides towards modernization, the ethnic wear category has been resuscitated with keen focus towards the modern consumers penchant for comfort and practicality. Today, the category includes a wide spectrum of cuts, fi ts, silhouettes – from inherently classic to more contemporary avatars that are as comfortable for daily wear as they are appropriate for corporate boardrooms. This evolution ensued an increasing preference of the young and consuming class towards Indian ethnic wear as well as boost the dynamics of the market like never before. Today, pegged at an estimated Rs. 112,893 crores and constituting approximately 32 percent share of the total Indian apparel market, the ethnic wear category in India holds a very promising future. In this one-off issue on ethnic wear, we track the evolution of the category in the recent years as well as the shift in customer preferences. It was an uphill task for us to gather all this data for this fast growing market has not yet matured enough to prompt proper research documentation. Nevertheless, the IMAGES Fashion Bureau did an incredible job of delving deep and putting pieces together to give you all readers a slew of dedicated articles on the pervading trends and the immense opportunities teeming in this new market segment. I hope you enjoy reading the issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Cheers!