Sunil Sethi
President. Fashion Design Council of India
The businessman founded his own fashion sourcing agency for Western brands entering India and leads the country’s fashion body, FDCI.
Sunil Sethi is the former senior vice president of the Li & Fung Group, a multinational company with extensive global presence and operating a sourcing network with 70 offices across 40 countries. He is also is the president of the Fashion Design Council of India, formed 20 years ago.
Before joining Li & Fung, Sethi set up Alliance Merchandising, a sourcing and buying company, in 1988. The company has counted Armani Casa, Crate & Barrel and Anthropologie among its clients, overseeing product development and buying in India. Since 2002, he has taken more than 25 Indian fashion designers on to the global stage, selling their products under their own brands to notable stores such as Selfridges, Golf & Co , Tsum, The Conran Shop, Habitat and Coin. Throughout his career Sethi has done his all to propagate the ‘Made in India’ brand.
Sethi took on the role as the Chief of the FDCI in 2008, now representing 250 Indian designers. Sethi is overseeing India’s fashion scene during a time of rapid transformation, as buzz around Indian brands is growing, and consumers are increasingly fashion-oriented. The FDCI heads the annual India Fashion Week, including the menswear and couture weeks. Under Sethi’s watch it has also struck partnerships with organisations such as PETA and the Ministry of Textiles in 2012, as well as the Indian Cotton Council International to promote the home fashion industry through initiatives such as the “Let’s Design” competition reality show promoting the use of cotton.
Career History
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