Version 1: Libas opens 9 new stores during Navratri as it races past 55 shops

The online-first ethnic wear brand is adding shops in five cities this festive season and plans more than 50 new stores in FY27.

Picture this. Navratri is here, the garba nights are on, and everyone wants a fresh kurta or a new saree. Right at this moment, one fashion brand is opening not one, not two, but nine new shops. That brand is Libas, and Inc42 reported on 16 October 2026 that it is opening nine stores across five Indian cities during Navratri.

Nine stores in the nine days of a festival. That is almost like a cricket team trying to hit a boundary in every over. So why is a brand that grew up selling online now so busy opening real shops? Let us break it down.

First, who is Libas?

Libas is a homegrown Indian brand. It sells women's ethnic and fusion wear: kurtas, suit sets, sarees, lehengas and modern Indian outfits, for both daily wear and big occasions.

It is what people call a D2C brand. D2C means "direct to consumer". Think of a samosa stall owner who sells straight to you, instead of handing samosas to a big shop that then sells them to you. A D2C brand makes its own clothes and sells them to you directly, mostly through its own online shop and app.

Libas has some well known rivals. In this space it competes with brands such as Biba, Aurelia, W for Woman and Soch.

Where are the nine new stores?

The new shops are EBOs, or exclusive brand outlets. An EBO is a shop that sells only one brand. It is like a chai stall that serves only its own special chai, not tea from other brands.

Here is where they are going, as listed by Indian Retailer:

Bengaluru (4 stores): Airport Road, Jayanagar, Commercial Street and Mantri Mall.
Jaipur (2 stores): Pacific Mall and Vaishali Nagar.
Kanpur (1 store): Z Square Mall.
Noida (1 store): H&S Mall.
Jabalpur (1 store): South Avenue Mall.

Add them up: 4 plus 2 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 makes 9. Bengaluru alone gets almost half of the new shops. With these openings, Libas now has more than 55 stores across India.

A store count that keeps jumping

The fun part is how fast the number of new shops is growing each year. Libas opened 10 stores in FY25 and 28 stores in FY26. For FY27, it plans to open more than 50 stores.

Quick note: "FY" means financial year. In India, a financial year runs from April to March. So FY26 is April 2025 to March 2026.

Bar chart showing Libas store openings: 10 in FY25, 28 in FY26 and a plan of more than 50 in FY27 — New store openings each year, with the FY27 number being a plan.

Look at those jumps. Going from 10 to 28 is almost three times as many in one year. Going from 28 to 50 is close to double again. It is like a kid whose pocket money goes from 10 rupees to 28 rupees, and then the parents promise more than 50 next year.

Why open shops when the internet exists?

Buying clothes online has one big problem. You cannot touch the fabric. You cannot check if the kurta fits your shoulders. You are guessing from a photo on your phone.

A real shop fixes that. Inc42 says the new outlets let shoppers explore styles, fabrics and fits in person, and take the brand beyond its online sales. Indian Retailer adds that the plan is to join the brand's digital-first business with physical stores, so people get more ways to shop.

When a brand sells in both places, online and in shops, and links them together, it is called being omnichannel. "Omni" means "all". So omnichannel means selling through all channels. It is like a cricket team that can win on both fast pitches and spin pitches.

Two panels: on the left, a phone screen where shoppers pick kurtas from photos; on the right, more than 55 stores where shoppers feel fabrics and check fits — From picking clothes on a phone to trying them on in a shop.

The founder and CEO, Sidhant Keshwani, explained the thinking in the company's statement. He said offline retail "will be an important lever" in reaching more customers, and that the nine Navratri openings are part of a bigger plan for FY27.

There is also timing. Navratri is a key festive shopping period. Opening shops right when people are hunting for festive outfits is like opening a lemonade stall on the hottest day of summer.

The big number: ₹1,000 crore

Libas says it crossed an annualised revenue run rate of ₹1,000 crore in March 2026. Apparel Resources says that makes it the first domestic D2C fashion brand to reach that mark, which it puts at about US $106 million.

So what is a run rate? Imagine a samosa stall that sells ₹1,000 worth of samosas in one week. If it kept selling at that speed all year, it would make 52 times ₹1,000, which is ₹52,000. That ₹52,000 is the run rate. It is not money already earned. It is the speed of sales stretched out to a full year.

Four steps: take sales of a recent stretch, stretch it to a full year, that is the yearly pace, Libas crossed a 1,000 crore pace in March 2026 — A run rate is a speed, not a final score.

This is why the next goal matters. Libas is targeting actual revenue of ₹1,000 crore in FY27. In other words, it wants the whole year's real sales, from April 2026 to March 2027, to match the pace it hit in March. For a rough feel, ₹1,000 crore in a year works out to a little over ₹83 crore a month.

Two more points from the same report. Libas said it expected about 30% growth in FY26 while staying profitable at the operating level, and that its own EBOs had already brought in over ₹100 crore in net sales. Keshwani also said the brand built its first ₹500 crore without outside funding, using only its own money. Libas has also raised ₹150 crore in funding to grow its online presence and speed up its move into shops, Deccan Herald reported.

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What does this tell us about Indian shopping?

For years, the big story was brands moving from shops to the internet. Now many online-first brands are doing the opposite and opening shops too. Libas is a clear example: it started digital-first, and now real stores are set to play a larger role in its next phase.

The cities are worth a look as well. Next to bigger cities like Bengaluru, the list includes Kanpur and Jabalpur. That shows the brand is looking for shoppers well beyond the largest cities.

So next time a new kurta shop opens at a mall near you during the festive season, it may be part of a much bigger plan: more than 50 new stores in a single year.