MUMBAI — “Our goal is to be a one stop shopping center for the wholesaler of home fabrics in both curtains and upholstery,” says Ajay Arora, General Manager of D’Décor. 

His equal  partner, brother and Co-General Manager is Sanjay Arora. Ajay runs the upholstery business while Sanjay handles the curtain and drapery business. Their father is also active in the business. He is a specialist in yarn purchasing and dyeing.

“Three years ago, we hit $200 million in sales and now we’re approaching $250 million,” Ajay says. That’s a 25 percent increase over the three years. D’Décor’s business is able to produce small batch and large batch dyeing. . We’re very versatile. We’re even printing on embroidery. Can you sell more than that? The history of the upholstery business is big, bigger, bust! We’re dedicated to do better than that,” laughs Ajay.

“We weave to order. We have four to five week lead-times and if you take care of these guys (the wholesaler), they don’t go anywhere else,” Ajay emphasizes. We have a two step distribution systems. We share the risk with the wholesaler. It’s a partnership. We’re producing 120,000 meters a day.” Ajay Arora

This is the strategy which has propelled D’Décor from a small textile producer in 1999 to the largest home fabrics weaving mill in the world today.

“Every three months, we bring out 200 new multipurpose plains. We weave cotton, polyester/linen and polyester/cotton. D’Décor has made significant investments in its business the past few years. For example, it has recently put into service a third Autohome warehouse system. It has added 34 embroidery machines, 24 dobby looms bringing the total to 400 looms. Sanjay utilizes 200 embroidery machines for curtains. D’Decor has a greige weaving mill in Tarapur right next to its finishing plant.

 Sanjay Arora

“We’re growing at a rate of 10-15 percent a year in dollar terms. Europe is back to normal.  From 2008-2013, we heard the R word but in 2014, we’re no longer hearing that. Indonesia and South Africa are down. China is becoming expensive and China is more focused on the domestic business. Chinese suppliers are not as diversified as we are.”

“Can you manage the ups and downs of this business?,” Ajay asks. We’re doing 80 percent of our business with eight countries with a total of 50 companies. We’re still trying to increase out export business to other countries and still grow our business with existing customers. Our domestic economy is growing at a rate of just under five percent where before it was growing eight percent. We’re more focused on export than ever. Ajay says The UK and Australia represent  the highest per capita consumption of fabrics.

 V.K. Arora, Chairman 

 We  produce everything in wide width but velvets.  Our two companies are D’Décor Home Fabrics which is the export division that covers upholstery and jacquard curtains, velvets and readymades.

“D’Décor Exports is our original company which covers our curtain and drapery line; sheers, embroidery and curtain plains. We’re a weaver of multipurpose fabrics with separate sales teams.

“We’re also selling made ups to importers of ready mades but that’s another world. The importer is selling to the bedding retailer. The sheeting business opened our eyes. Our bedding lines are focused on Europe because they understand digital printing.”