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56-558: Fabindia is an Indian chain store retailing garments, home-decor, furnishings, fabrics and products handmade by craftspeople across rural India. Established in 1960 by John Bissell, an American working for the Ford Foundation , New Delhi , Fabindia started out exporting home furnishings , before stepping into domestic retail in 1976, when it opened its first retail store in Greater Kailash , New Delhi. The chairman of

112-693: A 40% stake in the Lucknow -based organic food and supplements company, Organic India, co-founded by Hindu convert and daughter of billionaire Edgar Bronfman, Sr. , Holly Bronfman Lev in 1997. In 2014, Fabindia launched a western wear brand "Fabels". The brand was first launched at Fabindia's Connaught Place store in Delhi, and later made available across India. Currently, Fabindia sells through its own retail outlets, multi-brand stores, and also through its own online store. On 3 April 2015, Union Minister of Human Resource Development , Smriti Irani allegedly spotted

168-641: A buyer for Macy's , New York, and relocated to India in 1958, as a consultant for the Ford Foundation , advising the government of India-run Central Cottage Industries Corporation , and was given a two-year grant for instructing Indian villagers in the making of goods for export. He believed in the emerging Indian textile industry and was determined to showcase Indian handloom textiles as a way to provide employment to traditional artisans. In 1964, Bissell met British designer Terence Conran , whose newly established home furnishing retail company, Habitat , soon became one of their biggest customers. Fabindia also established

224-622: A camera positioned to record near a changing room, at an outlet of Fabindia in Candolim , Goa . She immediately raised an alarm, alerting her husband and then called a local legislator, Micheal Lobo, who lodged a First Information Report (FIR). A local court later came down heavily on the Calangute police saying that they exercised their power of arrest arbitrarily against four staff members of Fabindia's Candolim outlet who were held late on 3 April. Judge Dvijple Patkar observed, "It appears that

280-549: A chain of teashops which became a staple of the High Street in the UK, and at its peak, the firm numbered around 200 cafes. The displacement of independent businesses by chains has sparked increased collaboration among independent businesses and communities to prevent chain proliferation. These efforts include community-based organizing through Independent Business Alliances (in the U.S. and Canada) and "buy local" campaigns. In

336-635: A company registered in France , purchased Habitat's European businesses . In April 2016, Home Retail Group agreed to a £1.4bn takeover by UK retailer Sainsbury's . The deal included the sale of brands Argos and Habitat. The acquisition completed on 2 September 2016. Before the acquisition Home Retail Group sold the Homebase business to the Australian company Wesfarmers and all Habitat branches within Homebase stores were subsequently closed. Habitat

392-516: A distribution network in the United States, supplying products to small retailers, including mom-and-pop shops . Bissell travelled across craft-based villages and towns, meeting weavers and entrepreneurs, who would produce flat weaves, pale colors, and precise weights in handloom yardage. His main supplier became A. S. Khera, a dhurrie and home furnishing manufacturer in Panipat . By 1965,

448-486: A founder-member of All India Artisans and Craft Workers Welfare Association (AIACA), along with Pritam Singh (Anokhi), Ritu Kumar , Madhukar Khera and Laila Tyabji ( Dastkar ). On the occasion of its 50th anniversary in 2010, the company made all its 842 employees shareholders. By 2012, the company had around 1,000 employees and 16 community-owned companies, or supplier region companies (SRCs), which were formed in 2007, and employ 86,000 artisans. In 2013, Fabindia purchased

504-466: A tea distributor based in New York, into a grocery chain that operated almost 200 stores. Dozens of other grocery, drug, tobacco, and variety stores opened additional locations, around the same time, so that retail chains were common in the United States by 1910. Several state legislatures considered measures to restrict the growth of chains, and in 1914 concern about chain stores contributed to passage of

560-673: Is a brand of household furnishings in the United Kingdom and the main homewares brand within the Sainsbury's group. Founded in 1964 by Sir Terence Conran , it merged with a number of other retailers in the 1980s to create Storehouse plc , before the latter sold Habitat to the Ikano Group, owned by the Kamprad family, in 1992. In December 2009, Habitat was bought by Hilco , a restructuring specialist. On 24 June 2011, Habitat

616-409: Is co-educational, senior secondary school with 600 students including 40% in partnership with "The John Bissell Scholars Fund", established in 2000. Fabindia was awarded "Best Retail Brand" in 2004 by The Economic Times . In 2004, Fabindia was featured as part of a CNBC special TV report on India. Fabindia brand does not advertise, and largely works through word-of-mouth publicity, then in 2007

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672-539: Is now closed with the Habitat sign removed from the building and the store empty. As of June 2023 Habitat has now closed all of its showrooms and moved to a solely online retail business. Habitat also has a transactional UK website, as well as offering a selection of Habitat products on the Argos website. In January 2009, Habitat began planning a fully transactional web site to enter the online shopping market. The site

728-456: Is the last remaining music chain store in the United States and has shrunk from over 1,000 at its height to 270 locations in 2018. In 2019, Payless ShoeSource stated that it would be closing all remaining 2,100 stores in the US. A restaurant chain is a set of related restaurants in many different locations that are either under shared corporate ownership or franchising agreements. Typically,

784-477: Is the main homewares and furnishings brand within the Sainsbury's group. It is part of the Sainsbury's Argos business which runs general merchandise and clothing operations including Habitat, Argos , Sainsbury's Home products and Tu clothing. Larger Sainsbury's supermarkets also have Habitat homewares available. In November 2020 Sainsbury's announced that it wanted to have 80% of homewares and furniture sold within

840-518: The Kamprad family, which owns Ikano, put the company up for sale, and it was sold to Hilco, a restructuring specialist, in December 2009 with the Kamprad family writing off the debts of the company and providing €50 million (£45 million) of working capital while Hilco paid about €15m. On 24 June 2011 Hilco, which had owned Habitat UK Ltd since December 2009, announced that it was putting

896-820: The Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act. Isidore, Benjamin and Modeste Dewachter originated the idea of the chain department store in Belgium in 1868, ten years before A&P began offering more than coffee and tea. They started with four locations for Maisons Dewachter (Houses of Dewachter): La Louvière , Mons , Namur and Leuze . They later incorporated as Dewachter frères (Dewachter Brothers) on January 1, 1875. The brothers offered ready-to-wear clothing for men and children and specialty clothing such as riding apparel and beachwear. Isidore owned 51% of

952-522: The London stores and around 50 in head office, including many of Habitat's in-house designers, buyers and merchandisers. It then introduced 84 Mini Habitat stores within Homebase branches and also begun to offer a selection of Habitat products in 200 Homebase and Argos stores nationwide and on the Argos and Homebase websites. By June 2011, all other Habitat stores in the UK had been closed by Hilco with around 750 employees being made redundant. Cafom ,

1008-471: The Sainsbury's group under the Habitat brand by the end of 2021. In April 2016 Habitat unveiled a £1.5million refurbishment of its flagship 25,000 Tottenham Court Road store. Designed by the Habitat in-house Design Studio, the new store featured a completely new look and layout for the brand with a stripped back design and monochrome colour palette to highlight Habitat's bright product collections. The Habitat store on King's Road in London closed in 2018. This

1064-492: The U.S. Supreme Court in 1931. Between then and 1933, 525 chain-store tax bills were introduced in state legislatures, and by the end of 1933 special taxes on retail chains were in force in 17 states. A chain store is characterised by the ownership or franchise relationship between the local business or outlet and a controlling business. While chains are typically "formula retail", a chain refers to ownership or franchise, whereas "formula retail" or "formula business" refers to

1120-689: The U.S., trade organizations such as the American Booksellers Association and American Specialty Toy Retailers do national promotion and advocacy. NGOs like the New Rules Project and New Economics Foundation provide research and tools for pro-independent business education and policy while the American Independent Business Alliance provides direct assistance for community-level organizing. A variety of towns and cities in

1176-679: The US), or as exceeding municipal zoning authority (i.e., regulating "who owns it" rather than the characteristics of the business). Non-codified restrictions will sometimes target "chains". A municipal ordinance may seek to prohibit "formula businesses" in order to maintain the character of a community and support local businesses that serve the surrounding neighborhood. Brick-and-mortar chain stores have been in decline as retail has shifted to online shopping , leading to historically high retail vacancy rates. The hundred-year-old Radio Shack chain went from 7,400 stores in 2001 to 400 stores in 2018. FYE

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1232-415: The United States whose residents wish to retain their distinctive character—such as San Francisco ; Provincetown, Massachusetts and other Cape Cod villages; Bristol, RI ; McCall, Idaho ; Port Townsend, Washington ; Ogunquit, Maine ; Windermere, Florida and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California —closely regulate, even exclude, chain stores. They don't exclude the chain itself, only the standardized formula

1288-740: The arrest." On 8 April 2015 company's Managing Director William Bissel, its former chief executive officer Subrata Dutta, regional manager Ruchira Puri, marketing chief Ramu Chandra, stores in-charge Kundan Gupta, E-commerce head Arun Naikar and category head Ashima Agarwal have sought anticipatory bail to avoid arrest in district court in Mapusa town. In October 2021, Fabindia received backlash after they named their Diwali collection as 'Jashn-e-Riwaaz'. William and John Bissell established "The Fabindia School" in 1992 in Bali , in Pali district of Rajasthan, today it

1344-550: The chain uses, described as " formula businesses ". For example, there could often be a restaurant owned by McDonald's that sells hamburgers, but not the formula franchise operation with the golden arches and standardized menu, uniforms, and procedures. The reason these towns regulate chain stores is aesthetics and tourism. Proponents of formula restaurants and formula retail allege the restrictions are used to protect independent businesses from competition. Habitat (retailer) Habitat (a trading name of Argos Limited )

1400-466: The characteristics of the business. There is considerable overlap because key characteristic of a formula retail business is that it is controlled as a part of a business relationship, and is generally part of a chain. Nevertheless, most codified municipal regulation relies on definitions of formula retail (e.g., formula restaurants ), in part because a restriction directed to "chains" may be deemed an impermissible restriction on interstate commerce (in

1456-510: The coming decade, Fabindia differentiated itself from other government-owned and often subsidized competitors, in handloom fabrics and the apparel sector, like KVIC and various state emporiums by adapting its fabrics and designs to urban tastes. For this, designers were enlisted to modernize its line of home linens and, most importantly, introduced a range of ready-to-wear garments, including churidar - kurta suits for women and men's shirts. Today, its team of designers continue to provide most of

1512-402: The company had a turnover of Rs. 20 lakhs, and then moved into an office. In 1976, major equity restructuring occurred within the company, in adherence with Reserve Bank of India 's rules instructing foreign companies to limit their foreign equity to 40 percent. Fabindia offered shares to close family members, associates, and suppliers, like Madhukar Khera, an early supplier to the company. This

1568-475: The company into administration. Home Retail Group (owner of Argos and Homebase ) purchased the Habitat brand, three central London stores in Tottenham Court Road, King's Road and Finchley Road and the UK website for £24.5 million. The UK business was registered under the name Habitat Retail Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Home Retail Group. Home Retail Group retained about 100 staff at

1624-722: The company is John's son, William Nanda Bissell . As of July 2020, Fabindia operated 327 stores across India and 14 international stores. In 2008, Fabindia had a revenue of $ 65 million, a 30% increase from the previous year. Fabindia sources its product from across India through 17 community-owned companies; a certain percentage of the shares of which are held by artisans and craftspersons. The products of Fabindia are mainly sourced from villages helping to provide and sustain rural employment in India. They are currently produced by over 40,000 artisans and craftspeople across India. The hand-crafted products also encourage good craftsmanship. Fabindia

1680-420: The company, while his brothers split the remaining 49%. Under Isidore's (and later his son Louis') leadership, Maisons Dewachter would become one of the most recognized names in Belgium and France with stores in 20 cities and towns. Some cities had multiple stores, such as Bordeaux, France . Louis Dewachter also became an internationally known landscape artist, painting under the pseudonym Louis Dewis . By

1736-556: The country and 6 abroad. Fabindia added its non-textile range in 2000, organic foods in 2004, followed by personal care products in 2006, finally it launched its range of Handcrafted jewellery in 2008. Fabindia sells a variety of products ranging from textiles, garments, stationery, furniture, home accessories, ceramics, organic foods, and bodycare products, besides exporting home furnishings. Fabindia's retail expansion plans started taking shape 2004 onwards, it opened multiple and larger stores in metros like Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi, while at

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1792-472: The craft-conscious enterprise concept of Fabindia became a Harvard Business School case study . 2010 marked 50 years of the foundation of Fabindia, and release of the book, The Fabric of Our Lives: The Story of Fabindia , by Radhika Singh. Chain store In 1792, Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna established W.H. Smith as a news vending business in London that would become a national concern in

1848-488: The designs and colors, created by village-based artisans who, in turn, learned the basics of quality, consistency and finish, such as avoiding frayed edges on handwoven shawls. The result was that traditional apparel and products became mainstream, fashionable, and were quickly adopted by a growing middle-class, becoming identified as the brand for the elite and intellectual, as well as affordable ethnic chic. Fabindia lost its biggest customer, UK-based Habitat , in 1992, when

1904-487: The early 1920s, chain retailing was well established in the United States, with A&P, Woolworth's , American Stores, and United Cigar Stores being the largest. By the 1930s, chain stores had come of age, and stopped increasing their total market share. Court decisions against the chains' price-cutting appeared as early as 1906, and laws against chain stores began in the 1920s, along with legal countermeasures by chain-store groups. State taxes on chain stores were upheld by

1960-743: The end of 2016 and were located in Nine Elms in London, London Colney (a former SavaCentre ) and Solihull . The in-store concession opened in 2017 in the Sainsbury's hypermarket in Calcot, Berkshire was actually a re-instalment, as that store sold Habitat products in the late 1980s and early 1990s when it was a SavaCentre (a 50:50 BHS -Sainsbury Joint Enterprise) hypermarket when both BHS and Habitat were part of Storehouse plc . Sainsbury's announced in 2020 that it would be permanently closing all 11 Habitat in-store concessions in its supermarkets with immediate effect, as its products would now be sold in

2016-615: The first fish and chips restaurant (as opposed to a take-away) in London, and its instant popularity led to a chain comprising 22 restaurants with locations around London and seaside resorts in southern England including Brighton , Ramsgate and Margate . In 1864, the Aerated Bread Company (ABC) began operating a chain of teashops in Britain. ABC would be overtaken as the leader in the field by Lyons , co-founded by Joseph Lyons in 1884. From 1909 Lyons began operating

2072-571: The furniture retailer Heal's and the Richard Shops fashion chain in 1983. In 1986, the company merged with British Home Stores to form Storehouse plc . The merger with British Home Stores also came with a 50% share of the SavaCentre hypermarket chain, a 50:50 Joint Enterprise with the supermarket chain Sainsbury's . In 1992 Habitat was purchased from Storehouse by Ikano . In October 2009, following several years of trading losses,

2128-635: The latter was bought by Ikano group, founder of IKEA , which then decided to appoint its own buying agent in India. The following year, John Bissell suffered a stroke, and his son, William, gradually took over the helm, completing the leadership transition after the death of father in 1998, at age 66. William, an undergrad from Wesleyan University , who had majored in philosophy, political science and government, had spent several years in Jodhpur , since completing his education in 1988. Working with rural artisans and crafts co-operatives across Rajasthan; William

2184-692: The main self-service non-food areas of Sainsbury's supermarkets instead. The company used to have stores in Galway and Dublin in the Republic of Ireland but these were closed down in 2008. Habitat previously employed 1,574 staff and operated in 71 stores: 35 in the UK, 26 in France , five in Spain and five in Germany (as of October 2009). The international operations are now run by Groupe Habitat , part of Cafom between 2011 and 2020, and since 2020 owned by

2240-723: The mid-19th century under the management of their grandson William Henry Smith . The world's oldest national retail chain, the firm took advantage of the railway boom during the Industrial Revolution by opening news-stands at railway stations beginning in 1848. The firm, now called WHSmith, had more than 1,400 locations as of 2017. In the U.S., chain stores likely began with J. Stiner & Company, which operated several tea shops in New York City around 1860. By 1900, George Huntington Hartford had built The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company , originally

2296-413: The police have lightly interfered/tampered with the personal liberty of the applicants for reasons best known to them. It appears that the applicants were automatically and unnecessarily arrested by the police. In my opinion, the circumstances of the case do not warrant any arrest. The police officer exercising the power of arrest as well as the investigating officer has not stated any valid justification for

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2352-564: The remains of Lupton Morton. Ryman Conran did not highly value the Habitat chain and apparently thought it was making a loss, so agreed to the sale. Ryman Conran retained Habitat's original factory in Thetford along with Conran Design Group. In 1981, the company's shares were floated on the London Stock Exchange and in 1982 it merged with Mothercare Group to form Habitat Mothercare Group plc. The now-listed company bought

2408-500: The rest is taken away by the middlemen. To counter this, Fabindia introduced an artisan-shareholder system through "supply-region companies" incorporated as subsidiaries. Here the craftspeople collectively own 26% of the equity in each company, based in nationwide centres, with Artisans Micro Finance, a Fabindia arm holding 49%, and employees and other private investors holding the balance. Also as part its expansion plans, 6% in Fabindia

2464-430: The restaurants within a chain are built to a standard format through architectural prototype development and offer a standard menu and/or services. Fast food restaurants are the most common, but sit-down restaurant chains also exist. Restaurant chains locations are often found near highways , shopping malls and densely populated urban or tourist areas . In 1896, Samuel Isaacs from Whitechapel , east London opened

2520-421: The same time spreading out beyond metros. It opened stores in cities like Vadodara , Dehradun , Coimbatore and Bhubaneswar , Durgapur soon as revenues also grew from Rs 89 crore in 2004–05 to Rs 129 crore in 2005–06, reaching Rs 200 crore in 2007, in the year when it sourced its products from 22,000 artisans in 21 states. Usually, the village-based artisan gets barely 5% of the tag price of their products as

2576-582: The stationery retailer Ryman to form Ryman Conran. The following year it purchased the business of Lupton Morton, which mostly supplied furniture to offices and corporations but also made pieces by other designers, and in 1970 acquired the retail chain Straker-Bedser. By 1970 the turnover of the group had doubled since the merger with Habitat. Terence Conran however was disappointed that Habitat itself had not been expanded and offered to purchase Habitat from Ryman Conran along with Conran Associates and

2632-640: Was also the height of the Indian Emergency period (1975–1976), when the rule barring commercial establishments from being operated at residential properties was implemented, forcing the company from its secondary premises, a house on the Mathura Road , and prompting Bissell to open the first Fabindia retail store in Greater Kailash , N-Block market in New Delhi , in 1976, which remains its register office. Now catering to urban India, as well, in

2688-604: Was because the building it had occupied since 1973 is being redeveloped under plans submitted by the landowner Cadogan Estates and approved by the Kensington & Chelsea Council . In 2018, the business opened two new standalone stores - one in Westfield White City as part of the extension of the shopping centre which was planned to attract more homeware and lifestyle brands and the other in Brighton ; this

2744-575: Was founded as an export company for home furnishings by John Bissell in two small rooms adjoining his bedroom in Golf Links , as "Fabindia Inc.", incorporated in Canton , Connecticut, and financed by his recently deceased grandmother's $ 20,000 legacy. Originally from Hartford , where his grandfather was the president of the Hartford Fire & Life Insurance Company; Bissell left his position as

2800-424: Was instrumental in the formation of various weavers' cooperatives. One of the first tasks taken up by William was shifting Fabindia's focus to the domestic market, en route to becoming a retail chain ; until then it only had two stores in Delhi. In time, Fabindia's retail business overtook its exports. Over the next two decades, Fabindia emerged as a successful retail business in India, with 111 retail outlets within

2856-621: Was launched in November 2009, based on an E-commerce application from BT Expedite , with a back-end by LShift, after a period when only a small number of products were available online. Following feedback, the company announced a new website in January 2011, offering online delivery to UK, Germany and Republic of Ireland. There were 11 smaller Mini Habitat format branches located in Sainsbury's stores measuring between 1,400 sq ft and 2,000 sq ft between 2016 and 2020. The first three were opened at

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2912-572: Was one of the few places that sold cheap pasta storage jars just as the market for dried pasta took off in the UK. The business expanded quickly in the UK throughout the 1960s, with the first store outside London opening in Manchester and internationally with the first overseas store opening in 1973 in Paris . Habitat also published a catalogue that showed a range of products grouped together in pleasant surroundings. In 1968 Habitat merged with

2968-527: Was opened in Fulham Road in Chelsea by Conran, his then wife Caroline, Philip Pollock and the model Pagan Taylor. This store became the Habitat template, with its quarry tiled floor, whitewashed brick walls, white-painted wooden-slatted ceilings and spotlights creating a feeling of space and focusing attention on the product. Conran has said the main reason for the shop's initial success was that Habitat

3024-539: Was put into liquidation and all but three UK Habitat stores were closed in a deal to sell the indebted furniture chain, with the brand and the three London stores sold to Home Retail Group . In September 2016, UK retailer Sainsbury's bought Home Retail Group, including Argos and Habitat, for £1.4 billion (about $ 1.85 billion). As of August 2024, all Habitat stores and showrooms are closed. Sir Terence Conran founded Habitat in London in 1964, opening his own store to market his Summa range of furniture. The first store

3080-677: Was sold in 2007, at an estimated $ 11 million, to Wolfensohn Capital Partners, a private equity firm founded by former World Bank president James Wolfensohn . In 2009, it acquired a 25% stake in UK based £30 million ethnic womenswear retailer, EAST. Today the company has retail outlets in all major cities of India—137 at last count—in addition to international stores in Dubai , UAE ; 3 stores in Bahrain ; Doha , State of Qatar ; Rome , Italy and one in Guangzhou , China. In 2005, Fabindia became

3136-410: Was the location of one of Habitat's most successful Homebase concessions. Sainsbury's announced in November 2020 that both the Habitat standalone stores in Tottenham Court Road (25,000 sq ft) and Finchley Road (18,000 sq ft) would close at the beginning of 2021, saying that it wanted to concentrate on selling Habitat products in its supermarkets and online. As of July 2021 the Tottenham Court Road store

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