Opens first store in the city; spread across 20,000 sq.ft. area

Mumbai, March 27,2009: Celio*, the hi-fashion French men’s apparel brand today launched its exclusive store in Mumbai at the R City Mall in LSB Marg, Ghatkopar. Spread over, 1,680 sq. ft., the very chic, high fashion store will showcase the entire Celio* collection of business, casual and sports wear for men. Celio offers refined, stylish, relaxed and natural fashion that allows men to express their personality and feel comfortable in all circumstances.

This store will also showcase Celio’s Spring-Summer 09 collection.

Celio* brand is all about masculinity, seduction, openness, generosity and service. Celio* offers a space dedicated to men, with Latin inspired fashion that is virile, relaxed and sensual. The Celio* style also means quality, a variety of colours and cuts, sophistication and discretion. Openness is one of Celio's strong values that encompass respect for others, well being, manners, altruism, sharing and dialogue. Celio* brand also stands out as accessible, affordable, borderless, urban, a honest brand offering good value for money.

The Celio* store concept has been designed by the well known design agency Sanguez & Partners. It is entirely devoted to masculinity and proudly displays the colours and standards of the brand. Red is the primary colour, an element that is immediately associated with Celio*. It is combined with black, which reinforces the virility and elegance of the brand. The long high central walkway in the stores makes one think of a fashion catwalk. The lighting has been designed to highlight the products displayed at the store. Finally, the clear signage helps customers to find their way easily around the store.

Celio Business range offers wide range of designs, patterns & colours in linen, solid poplin, plain weave, stripes, checks and printed shirts for Men priced at Rs 899-2199/-. And wide range of Trousers/Pants available in checks & stripes pattern with special fit for Indian body. Trousers/Pants are available at Rs. 1499-2999/-.

Celio Casual range expresses mixture of a chic look and relaxed styling available in Sports Chic, Uniform Chic and Natural chic. Celio Polo t-shirts are available in pastels, beige & natural colours with different shades of Pink, Yellow & Red – Must have of the season. Polo t-shirts are available at Rs. 499-899/-.

Celio Sports range offers trendy sportswear that is virile, relaxed and sensual. Priced at Rs 599-1699/-.

Celio* is also available at other locations in Mumbai at Pantaloons stores in Mega Mall, Andheri and Central at Oberoi Mall, Goregaon.

Celio has presence in India through a joint venture with the Future Group, one of India's leading business houses with multiple businesses spanning across the consumption space.

About Celio*
Founded in 1985, the brand imposes itself as the leader brand in the masculine ready-to-wear segment in France.

The brand is present in France and internationally in more than 600 stores among 46 countries. Celio*, specialist of the sportswear and of the casual wear, proposes a manly fashion, cool and sensual but also urban with the business line. Its refined style and with no nonsense also target on quality, the variety of models, of colours, and of cut.

Celio, a Lightning Success of its Own
From the first store inaugurated in Paris in 1985 to the some 700 addresses established in about forty countries around the world, this French men’s fashion company is a success story in its own right. Visionaries, Marc and Laurent Grosman anticipated the development of the clothing industry and distribution by creating the Celio brand with a positioning that is precise, styled and affordable. Today, a leader in its sector, this for men only company, is now more than ever setting out to capture international markets while reinforcing its presence in France.

Sportswear before its Time
To understand the originality of Celio, one needs to recall the context of the years during which it was created. In the height of the 1980s in Paris, men’s fashion was not yet in style. Although there was some talk of sportswear, which was all the rage on the other side of the Atlantic, casual fashion was not yet trendy. And, on the shelves of French shops at the time, generally independent and multi-brand, everything in the menswear section was quite classic and not at all exciting. “We had a feeling that casual wear and sportswear would have a promising future, describe the two founding brothers, with that unexplainable element of intuition that often results in the greatest success stories. We had to break with the existing concepts, offer a vast and complete selection, assert our distinctive identity while reassuring…” Inaugurated on rue Saint Lazare in 1985, the first Celio shop proved to live up to the promised revolution. The collections were displayed to their advantage in a bright setting where customers could easily find their way around, wander from one area to another and handle the clothes at their leisure. The style was also original! Casual and trendy, every style is easy to wear and nicely coloured. In short, Celio stood out immediately as an affordable brand that appealed to men. So much so that about twenty years later, one in two French men wears its collections!

The Early Days of a Tremendous Expansion
The success of the first Celio shop was so great that other shops did not take long to open. The following year, Marc and Laurent Grosman once again proved their insight by banking on the development of shopping centres. Located on the outskirts of provincial towns, these new shopping areas were designed to make customers’ lives easy. Everyday products and consumer goods brought together in one place where getting around and finding a parking spot is easy.

Men, who have better things to do than spend their Saturday afternoons traipsing round shops, applauded the opening of Celio boutiques in these new shopping centres. “Some years, we inaugurated up to 34 stores in twelve months”, recall the Grosman brothers. Their small company was booming and in 1992, seven years after rue Saint Lazare, it already had a network of one hundred addresses, including a first shop in Belgium, a success that came just as quickly in bordering countries.

Celio did not hesitate to go even further by setting up a shop in Beirut the following year. It was the brand’s very first franchise – today it has 170 franchises throughout the world, divided into five large areas in addition to France’s overseas departments and territories, (Mediterranean Basin, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Central America and Asia).

In countries like France, Spain and Italy, the company already has its own network. However, Celio boutiques are predominantly branches, with 336 in France, 50 in Italy, 57 in Spain and 33 in Belgium.

Young Energetic Teams
Celio’s rapid, worldwide success has pushed Marc and Laurent Grosman to structure their company. Now presided over by Christian Pimont, it employs some 3,350 employees with no less than 125 different trades in several sites, from the shared service centre in Saint-Ouen in the Paris suburbs, the purchasing agency in Hong Kong, to the International Supply and Referencing Centre in Brussels, the offices of the subsidiaries in Belgium, Spain, Italy, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the logistics centre with its five warehouses in Villetaneuse, Chambly, Croissy-Beaubourg, Salon-de-Provence and Hong-Kong, and the vast network of shops. What do all of these architects of Celio’s success have in common: passion and spirit. This may be because their average age is approximately 28, but particularly because their company perpetuates a state of mind and a style that are connected to real life. Continually enriched with new styles, the in-store collections are proof of the brand’s constant challenge to keep up with the times. From merchandising to training salespeople, to how the styles are arranged, Celio also makes it a point of honour to meet customers’ tastes and expectations which differ from one country to the next. Lastly, it is a responsible company which, in its relationships with its customers, employees and suppliers, has established respect as a fundamental value. This attitude even applies to the selection of raw materials. Well before the issues of ecology, sustainable development and fair trade became all the rage, Celio carried, in 2005 for example, approximately thirty products made from Max Havelaar label cotton. Today the brand is involved in the development and future of Africa with a portion of the “Cotton Made in Africa” collection.

For further information on the Celio* range please visit: www.celio.com

About Future Group
Future Group, led by its founder and Group CEO, Mr. Kishore Biyani, is one of India’s leading business houses with multiple businesses spanning across the consumption space. While retail forms the core business activity of Future Group, group subsidiaries are present in consumer finance, capital, insurance, leisure and entertainment, brand development, retail real estate development, retail media and logistics.

Led by its flagship enterprise, Pantaloon Retail, the group operates over 11 million square feet of retail space in over 63 cities and towns and 65 rural locations across India. Headquartered in Mumbai (Bombay), Pantaloon Retail employs around 30,000 people and is listed on the Indian stock exchanges. The company follows a multi-format retail strategy that captures almost the entire consumption basket of Indian customers. In the lifestyle segment, the group operates Pantaloons, a fashion retail chain and Central, a chain of seamless malls. In the value segment, its marquee brand, Big Bazaar is a hypermarket format that combines the look, touch and feel of Indian bazaars with the choice and convenience of modern retail. The group’s specialty retail formats include- books and music chain - Depot; sportswear retailer - Planet Sports; electronics retailer - eZone; home improvement chain - HomeTown; and rural retail chain - Aadhar; among others. It also operates the popular shopping portal, www.futurebazaar.com.

Future Group believes in developing strong insights on Indian consumers and building businesses based on Indian ideas, as espoused in the group’s core value of ‘Indianness.’ The group’s corporate credo is, ‘Rewrite rules, Retain values.’

For further information please contact
Mr. Atul Takle
Head - Corporate Communications
Pantaloon Retail (India) Limited
Email: mediarelations@futuregroup.in
Website: www.pantaloonretail.in