(From top) A sketch of the store layout of the new retail outlet of Tanishq at Fort Knox on Camac Street; model Bidita sports jewellery from Tanishq. Picture by Pabitra Das

It’s an ode to the progressive Indian woman who hasn’t lost sight of her roots ? an offering from Tanishq, which a decade back had set out to carve a niche for itself in a business that was “fragmented, disorganised and lacked transparency”.

The jewellery brand from the house of Tatas is all set to roll out its new retail format focused on today’s Indian woman at a Camac Street address on Wednesday.

The 4,000-sq ft anchor at Calcutta’s first dedicated jewellery mall, Fort Knox, The Ornamint developed by the Fort Group, will mirror this new retail identity of Tanishq.

“We chose Calcutta as it is a city rooted in heritage and culture, at the same time embracing the winds of change,” Dwaipayan Sen, regional business manager (east), Titan Industries Ltd, owner of the Tanishq brand, tells GoodLife.

The brand’s Fort Knox outlet is designed with the theme ‘revitaliser of tradition’ and aligns with its new product profile, which swings from the earlier more global look to “the quintessential Indian woman” who is in sync with the contemporary world.

“We have laid strong foundations to what we set out to do ? become the most preferred and desirable jewellery brand for the Indian woman. Today, we are the single largest brand and fine-jewellery retailer in the country, and growing,” Sen says.

He adds that the levers of growth in the next phase of the Tanishq story will be “complete understanding of the progressive Indian woman, her needs and requirements”, so that the products cater to just that.

The brand bosses hope the Fort Knox store will mirror these new growth drivers, to be replicated in similar-format flagship stores in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.

The roadmap recipe is retaining good practices from the past and imbibing new ideas of retail and customer centricity to appeal to the consumer.

While the look of the Camac Street store will be reminiscent of the past, the layout conceptualised by the brand’s visual merchandising team is “very customer-friendly”.

The display pattern is traditional, with the walls used for the first time to showcase products.

The visual ambience is predominantly stone, with the use of arches and zafris and the counters curved for “greater visibility” of the product range, encouraging customers to take “quick decisions”.

Product offering, coupled with ambience and communication, should be a winning combo, it is felt.

The high-profile lines created by the Tanishq Design Studio like Aria, Diva, Hoopla, 9to5? will all be there at the Fort Knox outlet.

However, the core competence will be the new designs introduced to tell “new tales of tradition”, heavier stuff catering to weddings and special occasions. A magic mart (yielding 60-70 per cent of sales) the new format is banking heavily on.

“By broadening the bridal jewellery basket, we hope to tap the large and wealthy Marwari community more effectively than before,” Sen feels.

Tanishq had run a pilot in Calcutta to understand the needs and aspirations of the city’s huge Marwari population, which has traditionally preferred the family jeweller to the branded store.

Tanishq stores, which had revolutionised the industry by introducing the karatmeter in 1998 to check purity of metal in a non-destructive manner, will now harp more on its Tata tag and playing the transparency card.