BANGALORE, India — Originally, DVK Silk International Exports was a contract supplier to several silk exporters as well as to the domestic India market but since 1991, it stopped contract manufacturing in favor of direct export of its own silk and faux silk collections to the American and UK markets. “We have seen drastic change in the market situation since the 2008 meltdown. We had to adopt to the changing market preferences and have been able to adjust to the new trend towards cheaper faux silks made of polyester at a fraction of the silk fabric cost”, say the DVK partners, brothers K. Ram Narayan and K. Laxmi Narayan, sons of the founder D.V. Krishnamurthy. The pair say they deliver natural and blended collections including pure silk furnishings within five to seven weeks. “We weave to order and accept a 200-300 meter batch in a single color,” they add. Naturals, blends and polyesters are priced between $ 25-30 range while pure silk collections are sold between & $11-$25. DVK wants to remain very competitive price-wise. DVK started as a weaver of pure silk fabrics in 1970 under the guidance of their father who was the sole weaver by himself and was also  wedded to one single silk yarn. Today, silk fabrics constitute just 15% of the total sales turnover, the brothers say. “The change of preference from pure silk to silk looking collections shocked us and we never had imagined that this new preference would continue for this long”, Lakshmi notes. “India completely depends on China for quality silk raw material and DVK was paying about $25 for silk yarn then and now we pay over $55 a Kilogram.” It was a difficult period soon after 2008 and DVK Silk carefully strategized the means to survive and stay in the business. “We realized that we couldn’t afford to have any special emotion towards silk alone and started looking at other yarns. The other most important issue was gaining control of the manufacturing process and remove bottlenecks on the delivery of consistent quality,” Lakshmi says. In 2009, the company built a new factory with the entire necessary infrastructure to weave cotton, linen, polyester and blends including silks. “We chose the best equipment such as Sulzer looms, Benninger warping machines, Staubli Dobbies/Jacquards, SWF Embroidery machines from Korea, Juki sewing machines that offer greater customer choice in terms of the variety of weaves and surface structures”, adds K. Lakshmi. Earlier the company used to weave silk furnishings in its own facility as well as out source from other weavers but DVK now weaves all collections in its own factory taking total responsibility for delivering quality and on time, the brothers say. “We deliver our line of collections between five weeks for regular weaves and maximum of seven weeks for intricate designed fabrics, Ram says. “The most important advantage we gained due to our own infrastructure facility is that we can deliver the quality that we promise to our customers”, Lakshmi emphasizes. He says that DVK has always given importance to the development of trendy collections in varying blend combinations. “The DVK design studio is being further spruced up with new design talent,” Lakshmi adds. “Honestly, there is no appreciable growth in our annual turnover but we hope our creativity efforts will supplement our marketing efforts,” Ram adds.