As Raymond marks 100 years since its founding, the group is signalling that its next chapter in fashion and textiles will be driven not by nostalgia, but by sharper leadership and operating depth. Chairman and Managing Director Gautam Singhania has brought in two seasoned industry leaders—Thomas Varghese and Satyaki Ghosh—to steer Raymond Lifestyle Ltd., the demerged entity that now houses the group’s core textile, apparel and retail businesses.
The appointments come at a critical moment. Following the 2023–2025 restructuring, Raymond Lifestyle has emerged as a focused, standalone fashion and textile platform—responsible for managing some of India’s most enduring menswear and fabric brands, alongside one of the country’s largest omni-channel retail networks. With the structural reset complete, attention has shifted decisively to growth, margins and relevance in a fast-evolving fashion market.
The Leadership Reset
Raymond Lifestyle had been without a permanent chief since Sunil Kataria’s exit in April 2025, with senior internal leaders managing the business through a transition phase. That period ensured continuity, but the next phase demanded a different capability set—leaders who understand fibre-to-fashion integration, large-scale retail, and margin-led growth across cycles.
That is where Varghese and Ghosh come in.
Thomas Varghese, who joins as Advisor to the CMD from January 15, 2026, brings over four decades of experience spanning manufacturing, textiles, retail and P&L leadership. During a 24-year career at the Aditya Birla Group, Varghese ran businesses across pulp, fibre, domestic textiles and overseas spinning, and served as MD & CEO of Aditya Birla Retail, overseeing the expansion of supermarkets and hypermarkets nationwide. His role at Raymond Lifestyle will focus on strategic reviews, special projects and long-term capability building, working closely with Singhania and the board.
Satyaki Ghosh, who takes charge of Raymond Lifestyle, arrives with deep operational credentials across textiles and branded businesses. Most recently, he was CEO – Cellulosic Fashion Yarn at Grasim Industries, a $350 million business supplying global apparel and technical textile majors such as Inditex, H&M, Pirelli and Bridgestone. Earlier, he led Grasim’s domestic textiles portfolio, overseeing brands across cotton, linen and wool, and managing fibre-to-retail integration. His mandate at Raymond Lifestyle is clear: translate scale into sustained profitability while accelerating brand and retail momentum.
The Business They Are Taking Over
Raymond Lifestyle today represents the consumer-facing heart of the Raymond Group, spanning textiles, apparel and retail. Its portfolio is structured around power brands addressing distinct wardrobe needs:
In apparel, Raymond Ready-to-Wear anchors premium formals and smart casuals, while Park Avenue continues to dominate the formal and occasionwear segment, alongside Park Avenue Woman. ColorPlus caters to premium casual wear, Parx targets younger consumers, and Ethnix by Raymond addresses the high-growth ethnic occasionwear market. Newer adjacencies such as Sleepz by Raymond signal a deliberate push into everyday lifestyle categories.
Textiles remain the economic engine. Raymond Fine Fabrics leads the suiting and shirting market across worsted wool, blends, cotton and linen, supported by Raymond Luxury Cottons and a growing Raymond Home portfolio in home textiles.
Retail is where this portfolio comes alive. The Raymond Shop, with over 1,000 exclusive outlets across 380+ cities, remains one of India’s most extensive fashion retail networks, complemented by Made-to-Measure studios, a custom tailoring ecosystem and a unified digital presence through MyRaymond.com.
Crucially, Raymond Lifestyle also retains deep manufacturing capability through subsidiaries such as Silver Spark Apparel, Celebrations Apparel, EverBlue Apparel and Raymond UCO Denim, giving it end-to-end control from fabric to finished garment—an advantage few Indian fashion platforms possess at scale.
Financial Context: Steady Growth, Sharper Focus
Operationally, Raymond Lifestyle has shown resilience through FY25 and into FY26. In H1 FY26, the business delivered double-digit growth, with branded textiles growing 17% and branded apparel up 11%, supported by festive demand, premiumisation and wider format expansion. Q2 FY26 saw branded textile revenues cross ₹937 crore, while apparel continued to scale despite near-term margin pressure from store investments.
The group remains net debt-free, providing headroom to invest in brand building, retail expansion and supply-chain efficiencies—priorities that now fall squarely under the new leadership’s remit.
What Comes Next
For Raymond Lifestyle, the centenary is less a milestone than a starting line. The mandate for Varghese and Ghosh is not reinvention, but execution at scale—sharpening brand identities, accelerating retail productivity, expanding ethnic and lifestyle adjacencies, and extracting more value from the company’s textile backbone.
As Indian fashion becomes more fragmented and competitive, Raymond’s challenge is to ensure its legacy brands remain contemporary, profitable and deeply embedded in consumers’ wardrobes. With a focused structure, a strong balance sheet and two seasoned leaders now at the helm, Raymond Lifestyle is positioning itself not just to honour its past—but to define what the next hundred years of Indian menswear and textiles could look like.
