So news arrives that the Puig Group, the Spanish beauty/fashion conglomerate that owns the fragrances and fashion of Carolina Herrera, Nina Ricci and Paco Rabanne, as well as other super-lucrative scents, is relaunching Paco’s ready-to-wear under creative director Manish Arora. Mr Arora is the only Indian fashion designer who shows in Paris, and he’s known for his use of colour, and interesting (some might say challenging) materials. Paco Rabanne has been on ice as a fashion brand since the departure of Patrick Robinson (now at the Gap) a few years ago.

According to Puig, it’s Mr. Arora’s adventurous aesthetic that attracted them to the designer — speaking to WWD, brand execs sited Arora’s touch of futurism as a DNA match with the brand’s namesake founder — but it’s hard not to suspect Mr Arora’s prominence in a very lucrative emerging market didn’t also contribute to his appeal (he has 170 stockists, the majority in India).

If so, the signing is a clever move on Puig’s part, since western fashion has been having a trickier time in the Indian market than, say, China, in part because of the rules governing retail, but also in part because the aesthetic heritage is so different.

“Even in India, we know who Paco Rabanne is,” Arora told WWD, but a more relevant statement may be “in India, everyone knows who Manish Arora is.” Given the success Naeem Khan experienced in his local market after Michelle Obama wore one of his dresses to a White House State dinner, it’s safe to assume many prospective Indian consumers will be thrilled by the idea a native son is at the helm of a Parisian fashion house. Thrilled enough to put their money where their pride is, anyway.