Flipkart has partnered with Italian fashion company Pitti Immagine, India’s Arvind and designers including Timzy Batra and Prithvi Rao to help sellers on its marketplace create designs in line with global trends.

Trendstalk, a platform that the e-tailer has recently launched, carries insights on global fashion trends – including colour palettes, cuts, designs and fabric direction – as well as forecsasts to help sellers create and list products that buyers would likely look for. “With this move, we are essentially democratising fashion and giving a chance to budding designers, exporters and brands to create a niche for themselves in line with current and next season trends,” Rishi Vasudev, VP (fashion) at Flipkart said.

Apart from sharing trends and insights on the seller portal, Flipkart is also organising offline workshops every season to handhold these sellers through their next collection.

Fashion is Flipkart’s fastest expanding category with a growth rate of 10 per cent month-on-month, Vasudev said. Over the last year, the category has grown threefold. Through the latest initiative, the portal is looking to target about 5,000 independent fashion category sellers.

“Initiatives like this will help sellers break out of traditional design set-up through globally targeted tools and trend application methods,” director at Pitti Immagine India said.