‘Deepavali shopping not hit by price rise’

Susanna Myrtle Lazarus
19 Oct 2011

CHENNAI: The festival of lights is reason enough for everyone to go shopping. New designs and a variety of clothing usually bring wave upon wave of customers to the shopping districts in the city.

These days, consumers look for more than just the usual styles and also insist on comfort and wearbility of the clothes beyond the festive season. For women, the latest trend is the netted chudidars and leggings with kurtis. Men seem to be going for the checked look in shirts, and branded shoes are in vogue. T Nagar has been attracting the normal crowd for this time of the year.

Shop owners feel that inflation has not affected the shopping habits of the city folk. Sundar, the son of the owner of Jayachandran Textiles, says, “The price of cloth has not increased exponentially. A nice outfit can be put together for around `500. The demand has not decreased even a little bit.”

Likewise, manager of Pandian Bangles, Selvam, says that the love of matching glass bangles has not waned, judging by the hordes of shoppers who come to the shop every day. Talking above the din of the customers, he says, “They do not care about the trends, they want perfectly matching bangles and they pick whatever designs they like best.”

Purasawalkam, with its numerous little shops, is decked up festively. In the evenings, special patrols of policemen have been put out to manage the crowds. Even during a weekday, afternoon shoppers abound. With shops like Madhar Sha and Saravana Stores, the crowd is constant.

Savithri, a shopper at Purasawalkam, says, “Deepavali is one of the biggest festivals, and the children look forward to it. It is the time to make them happy with new clothes and whatever they want. We do not see the need to control our spending; after all, it is once a year that we celebrate this festival.” This seems to be the general view of most shoppers.

Some of the smaller shopkeepers say that since there is one more weekend left before Deepavali, they expect more crowds in the coming days.