BLING THINGS: (From top left) A diamond dripping Cartier watch, the atmospheric pool deck at Four Seasons Hotel, Mumbai, Jimmy Choo footwear, and the Bottega Veneta store in Mumbai

A fleet of glistening BMWs lies coiled in waiting around the short, discreet driveway of luxury hotel Four Seasons in Mumbai. Inside, regional vice-president Armando Kraenzlin, with unhurried charm and wryness, attends to the finishing touches on the eve of the hotel’s opening on Monday.

“As we explain to our employees, luxury is a series or a summary of small details that pamper you,” says the Swiss, who happens to own a Pacific island in the Philippine Sea. Four Seasons’ newest address in Worli overlooks the Arabian Sea and the race course, where guests will be able to touch down at its private helipad, glide off to the 32-storey hotel in BMWs and perhaps be shown to the 3,336-sq-foot presidential suite, whose spaciousness is liable to make some apartment owners violently envious.

Shimmying further south, in Bangalore another international hotel chain, The Ritz Carlton, is rapidly building skyward for its India debut in 2010. “Our credo is, ‘We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen’ and we have our service values and service culture running through every element of what we do,” says Simon Manning, regional vice-president, Asia Pacific, The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

All this, of course, tops the entry into India a few years ago of holiday luxury hotel chain Aman Resorts.

Yet hotels are just one example of global luxury brands premiering here. Bags, shoes, shades, electronic goods, cars, watches, wine, spas, resorts — luxury paradiso is coming to a store near you. In downtown Mumbai’s Galleria in the business district of Nariman Point, Italian handbags bear no resemblance to Miss Marple’s purse: Gucci-owned Bottega Veneta’s limited edition Cabat with its handmade buttery-soft leather of non-logoed luxury tempts those who feel it’s a fair exchange for Rs 2,97,000. Others can fish out five-digit loose change for smaller clutches.

While some of the brands such as Bose, Tag Heuer, Mont Blanc and Louis Vuitton were early arrivals, others such as Gucci, Fendi, Vertu and Dior followed and have India squarely in sight. This week, ASUS and Lamborghini launched the co-branded ASUS-Lamborghini ZX1 PDA phone and VX3 Laptop, crafted with sapphire crystals and titanium, for the ultra premium segment. Next month cosmetics giant Estee Lauder will open an outlet in Mumbai.

“This year alone, 167 global brands are launching in India,” exclaims the editor of the Indian franchisee of an international women’s magazine, who declined to be named.

What is more, most observers see the luxury product and services market extending beyond the business and corporate capitals of Delhi and Mumbai, to Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, the high-spending Chandigarh, the millionaire capital of Nagpur, and other affluent cities such as Pune, Surat, Vadodara and, closer east, Asansol.

The burgeoning demand for luxury products explains the new luxury product invasion. According to consulting group AT Kearney’s study of the Indian luxury industry, the domestic luxury product market was worth Rs 17,300 crore in 2006. It is set to triple by 2010 and grow seven times by 2015 when it will be valued at an estimated Rs 120,000 crore. Illustrating just this, designer leather products company Hidesign reports that it started with a very low presence in India. In 2000, 92 per cent of its market was overseas; now 80 per cent of the revenue comes from India. In 2007, India became Hidesign’s number one market, beating the UK after 20 years in terms of revenue.

To be sure, the concept of luxury has been around in India before the global luxury brands walked in. “We are not like European socialists,” stresses Dilip Kapur, president of the Pondicherry-based Hidesign. “We have our maharajahs and Indians are used to being served. The concept of luxury is not new to us.”

In the hotels industry, the Taj group and the Oberoi group have featured in lists of world luxury hotels. The ITC-Welcomgroup chain has its Luxury Collection of hotels in a tie up with Starwood Hotels & Resorts. And those who have a yen for the good life can cock an eye at ultra-premium (room rates Rs 22,000 – Rs 105,000 for villas) de-stressing at Ananda Spa in the Tehri-Garhwal hills. In 2006, it was voted the world’s number one destination spa by jetsetters’ travel bible Conde Nast Traveller for the second successive year.

Indeed, incoming rivals like Four Seasons and Ritz pay generous tribute to the long-standing players. “The two main players in India have done a tremendous job. If you go to any of the Oberoi Vilas they are really hard to beat by any standards. I really think the arrival of the resort hotels of the Oberois has changed the understanding of the hotel industry abroad,” says Kraenzlin. Four Seasons was in intense talks for three years to partner with the Oberois but their strong management cultures made it impossible for them to blend and they eventually parted cordially.

Four Seasons will be charging 5-10 per cent over the current market leaders. The Ritz Carlton will not give out room rates two years before launch.

Yet some say that premium hotels have mainly been vying for the business traveller. A senior analyst at a research company that focuses on the hospitality industry, who insists on remaining anonymous, says that the ultra-luxury space has been up for grabs. “There is no one in the luxury space, really,” he says, before adding, with exceptions such as “a couple of the Taj Hotels, Ananda in the Himalayas, and the Oberoi Vilas hotels.”

So will the new luxury hotels that are making a debut here affect the big domestic hotel chains? Executives at Indian Hotels, which runs the Taj group, and at the Oberoi group were unavailable for comment. But Rakesh Mathur, president, ITC Welcom Heritage group, says, “We’ve been seeking properties fitting into our categories of heritage hotels all over India. We’ve already made forays into the north east and are looking to add value to our existing hotels in Gujarat, Kerala and other areas of the south.”

Says Amit Adarkar, managing director, Market Probe India, the market research agency: “Foreign luxury product companies will compete with Indian industry only if they get into the serious volume game. But the serious luxury brands won’t get into that — they will prefer their exclusivity. Domestic manufacturers still prefer the volume game. So the luxury brands won’t be a threat to them. There are no serious premium brands in India.”

Indeed, in the 2007 Interbrand/Business Week survey of the Top 100 global brands, not a single Indian brand made the list.

True, luxury has many levels. There’s luxury and exclusive luxury (often by invitation). You may be rich but not wealthy. You are a millionaire, but just a step ahead of the mass affluent in these days of Indian billionaires. There are high net worth individuals like mid-rung bankers and there is industrial royalty such as the Mittals, the Ambanis and the Tatas, not to speak of the erstwhile royalty floating their spas and resorts.

So what is now new is the arrival of high-definition luxury products for an audience that has the means to feed its newly discovered appetite for the good life.

The arrival of world luxury products here will have several significant results. One, it will lead to market segmentation. The automobiles industry has witnessed this, with the rollout of Rolls Royces, Bentleys and BMWs at the upper tier of the market. “It is happening in clothing, where you have Benetton and Lacoste as well as Armani and Chanel,” notes Delhi-based businessman Bhai Manjeet Singh of Montari Industries who partnered with Bausch and Lomb to bring Ray Ban sunglasses into India in the 1990s.

What the market is seeing is a “ladder of price points,” argues Radha Chadha, co-author of the 2006 book, The Cult of the Luxury Brand:Inside Asia’s Love Affair with Luxury. “Till now, you had the luxury or everyday brands, nothing in between. Now the bridge brands will also come in. So will the ultra-luxury names,” says the Hong Kong-based Chadha.

HIGH END: (Top) A room at Mumbai’s Four Seasons and a Louis Vuitton bag

When Hidesign launched its handcrafted leather bags and accessories in 1986, it was considered a premium brand. Its leather bags were sharp on the wallet but made a discreet style statement for the ambitious career man or woman. Currently, it is in the process of a makeover which will see the launch of its couture line, retailing at an entry tag of Rs 12,000. Ouch? Well, affordable if you compare it to a Bottega Veneta or a Louis Vuitton.

Kapur calls his sticker price “affordable luxury.” “This is where we are going to see segmentation. There are the high-end brands such as Gucci, Prada and Hermes. We, along with brands such as Hugo Boss, belong to the affordable luxury tier: that has huge potential,” he says.

Second, some Indian companies simply won’t compete in the luxury segment. Titan, among the world’s five biggest watchmakers, says fear is not a factor when facing international luxury brands such as IWC, Piguet and Chopard. “Our strategy is to address the mid premium segment of the market and not the luxury end,” explains Bhaskar Bhat, managing director, Titan Industries. Titan, in fact, has had its own premium watches as well — Xylys (Swiss made) and Nebula (made of solid gold) priced under Rs 1 lakh. Many of the luxury-end Swiss watches start prices at Rs 1 lakh.

Third, Bhat says that the luxury segment has and will redefine prices in India. When watches like Tag Heuer or Tissot came in, prices spurted overall and the public’s inclination to pay went up. This will happen again with more luxury brands entering. “Titan is actually benefiting from their entry,” Bhat contends.

There’s little doubt too that foreign luxury products and services will eventually force their Indian counterparts to upgrade quality. Bhai Manjeet Singh says that Indian brands cannot now offer the kind of quality that foreign luxury brands offer. “They aren’t offering these range of products and services because there was no competition. When they face competition on home turf, they will gear up and be able to offer the same quality as these luxury brands,” he says.

In the onslaught of the luxury majors, domestic brands do enjoy some advantages. Foreign companies that own luxury brands entering the Indian market can have only a majority stake in a joint venture and need to partner with Indian companies. Finding the right fit is not always easy, which gives their homegrown rivals breathing space.

Then, finding dedicated space and the equivalent of “high street” or “luxury malls” is tough. Shopping for luxury products is best done in rarefied and exclusive ambience. This so far has been mainly restricted to five-star hotels’ shopping galleria and one-size-fits-all malls. (Infrastructure giant DLF is expected to open its Emporio luxury mall in Delhi for luxury brands next year.) “Bvlgari has just one store. The Indian market cannot be dented with one or two stores,” says Pritti Kumar, editor of a luxury magazine that targets Gujaratis in the US, the UK and India.

That’s a problem Bose Corporation knows only too well. Although the high-definition audio equipment manufacturer has been in India for 10 years, it only recently opened its third store. It will make up for time by going from three to 16 in nine cities this year. “We don’t want to be in multi-brand outlets. We have a fair amount of proprietary technology and we want to explain our products to the clients in our store with the right ambience,” says Rathish Pandey, country head, Bose. Bose caters to multiple consumer needs but its premium product is the home entertainment package which retails for Rs 2,36,000 .

Four Seasons too struggled to enter India with a splash. The initial idea was to arrive with several locations. That explains the parleys with different hotel companies already here. “Finally, after 8-9 years of trying, somebody in Toronto had the glorious idea of trying to open one hotel instead of several. And what’s funny is that a year after we announced the Mumbai project, we had another three projects signed up and another two hotels are coming up this year,” laughs Kraenzlin.

In contrast, for domestic companies such as Titan and Hidesign, the distribution network is already in place. Titan has 223 exclusive stores and the largest network of dealerships and after sales services among watch companies. “Our consumer access and connectivity is far different from what international luxury brands will provide,” says Bhat.

Some Indian brands will grow with the market, some will go under, predicts Chadha. “Some will up their game. Indian brands have been pretty much one size till now. The luxury end will see visibility in terms of quality now.” But Indian brands, she adds, will also go global. “Some designers already have international standing and stores abroad, in the US, London and Dubai. On the other hand international brands may take care of their Indian competitors by buying them out.”

Watch this space, toffs and dames. It’s expanding.