Omkar Arts, Pune, recently launched its retail store, Heritage Designs
04 August 2021: Omkar Arts recently inaugurated its first retail outlet, Heritage Designs, at Sadashiv Peth, Bajirao Road, in Pune. The firm is managed by the three Modgi brothers; Deepak who takes care of production and has done a course in ‘printing technology,’ Kiran who takes care of marketing and sales, and Sandip, who takes care of Designing, Innovations and has studied GD Arts.
Taking us on a trip down memory lane, Sandip Mogdi, reveals, “I started my own printing unit by the name of Omkar Arts in 1987 while I was studying in the second year of my college education. The motive behind starting the unit was to earn and learn and pursue my education. My elder brother and younger brother soon joined Omkar Arts. The three of us were managing the business and studying at the same time. I graduated from college in 1991 and then turned our printing unit into a full professional business in 1992.”
He recalls, “During that period there were very few people in Pune in the textile printing business. The work involved a lot of tedious time consuming processes like making artworks by hand and then converting them into printable format with the help of film process. It was a manual process and required 2-3 days before the design could actually go to print. During that period I came into contact with Shashi Karmarkar who was one of the pioneers in Pune to use the computer for design purpose. After that I too purchased my first computer and soon learnt the art of making designs using the various software options that were available at that time. This helped me to eliminate the lead period from the design process and give a quick service to my clients thus leaving the competition far behind. Within a few years we were the leading and preferred textile printers in Pune. Soon we were catering to Peppermint, Tejwaney, Cotton King and other reputed brands from Pune.”
The transformation was gradual and Sandip explains, “As the years passed and the technology advanced people started selling their products online. We geared up for the online wave and started to supply various products as OEM to around 15 brands who were selling online. This was a learning experience for us. We saw the market closely and realised that a lot of people were facing problems or struggling to sell their products online. The problems our clients were facing were maintaining inventory with a choice of colours/ designs etc. We decided to go online with a brand name and learn the online market to offer better services and solutions to our clients. Through this experience we started offering new services and better solutions to these clients. During this period our online brand ‘Heritage Designs’ was growing steadily.”
He emphasises that “At the same time we were also providing services to a lot of retail stores and had a dream project of owning a brand and our own store for quite some time. We recently launched our retail store Heritage Designs. Our store has a different approach in terms of design and layout than the standard retail outlets. We also plan to offer customised services to our customers. This will help us to understand the retail customer in a better way and pass on the experience and service to our clients. I have done GD Arts from Abhinav Mahavidyalay, Pune and designing is my passion. So our USP is designing and special effects textile printing. My friend’s father, Shashi Karmarkar, a known designer had given me guidance during the initial phase of my studies. I decided to invite him to open our first retail outlet which we opened few days ago in Pune Sadashiv Peth, Bajirao Road.”
Sandip points out that “We have an ultra-modern garment printing factory at Baramati Hi-Tech Textile Park spread on a 1 acre plot. Presently we have 30 staff and a M&R Textile Printing Machine, all related pre-press equipment, 4 Epson sublimation printers and now have a production capacity of 5,000 pieces per day. Our main work involves digital textile printing, cotton t-shirt printing, digital sublimation printing. We do job-work and make garments in our own brand as well.”
