The well-known Italian design company Alessi once locked horns with the Indian stainless steel home accessories company Magppie Ltd for allegedly reproducing an Alessi's water pitcher design on its brochure.
But that was a one-off thing that Magppie's product design and development head, Vinod Jain, would like to forget.
"The pictures were removed from the brochure more than a year ago," he says adding that it was an aberration and does not reflect the company's prospects or business philosophy.
Today, the five-year-old company dealing in high-end stainless steel products boasts of owning more than 500 patented designs.
Its range includes bar accessories, wine buckets, platters, mixing bowls, kitchen ware, vases and more. But the young Magppie promoters, Vinod Jain and Arun Garg, aren't resting on their laurels.
They plan to capture a slice of the growing fashion accessories market in India and launch a unique line of stainless steel jewellery at high-end lifestyle stores in Delhi and Mumbai this month.
"Silver is expensive and requires high maintenance such as polishing and buffing. And unlike steel, you can't play around with designs unless it's a traditional design," says Magppie managing director Arun Garg.
The plan is to stock geometric, unisex designs for rings, earrings and cuff links. The line could later be extended to introduce an ornate range as well as accessories like watches, belts and wallets under the Magppie brand name. The jewellery will be priced between Rs 500 and Rs 5,500.
The jewellery range, the company claims, has been created by designers based in Italy, Denmark and India.
"Steel is a very hard element and the trend worldwide is to fuse steel with ceramic and wood. We use high quality German steel for our products," says Jain, who plans to launch his mixed media products such as coffee cups and platters in the next few months.
"Steel is cheap, durable and hygienic. While the Indian conventional steel has a mirror finish with reflective properties, European steel looks like silver and has a matte finish," he adds, talking about the different types of steel.
Currently, Magppie, which has trading offices in the UK, Italy and Hong Kong, does stainless steel product design execution jobs for retail chains like Marks & Spencer, Crate & Barrel and smaller stores like Habitat and The Conran Shop in the UK.
Today, Magppie, that started in 1998, claims to be a significant player in the Rs 100-crore (Rs 1 billion) stainless steel accessories market.
Prior to launching Magppie, Jain's family was involved in manufacturing flat stainless steel sheets for the domestic market.
Later, it switched to executing customised design work for foreign companies using imported steel in 1997. Today, the company's combined turnover, including exports, is Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.50 billion).
However, eager to make Magppie a household name for design conscious people, the company has spent nearly Rs 2.5 crore (Rs billion) in advertising its products in the last three years. Currently, Magppie products retail at 100 outlets across 24 cities.
Besides, its institutional clients include five-star hotels like ITC group of hotels, Hyatt Regency, and Taj group of hotels. The products are modelled at its factory's design studio in Kundli, 35 km from Delhi.
Jain and Garg expect Magppie to become a Rs 10-crore (Rs 100 million) company by next year, up from the Rs 4.5 crore (Rs 45 million) it clocks today. But the future plans are very ambitious. The target is to make it a Rs 50-crore (Rs 500 million) company in five years.
To that end, Magppie has also plans to increase its plant capacity from 1,50,000 pieces a month to 4,00,000 pieces a month by April 2004. The company has a staff strength of 700.
