January 05, 2003 -- After years of shipping products bearing no trademarks, Satin Textiles Co is starting to develop its own Pasaya brand name for clothing fabric, hoping to make its mark in the international fashion industry.

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The company ships more than 80 percent of its textile output, worth 600 million baht a year, to the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

"We never had our own brand name for the exported products but used the corporate name for every shipment," said managing director Schle Woodthanan.

Pasaya was founded in 2000 when the company began developing textiles with distinctive designs in order to add value and set its products apart from cheaper Chinese-made goods.

Sound structure, fine design and a feminine look have combined to make Pasaya popular with customers, who view the fabrics as unique and not overpriced.

Initially, the company was not certain whether using Pasaya as a brand name would work because the word in Thai actually had a negative meaning, said Mr Schle.

But women in power in past history were all dubbed Pasaya even though they were all beautiful and clever.

"So, we used this word as our fashion fabric brand to reflect women of great charm, sexy looking, wise and self-confident," he said.

The company in August opened two outlets to serve local customers at Gaysorn, the luxury shopping plaza in Bangkok. One is a gallery for displaying and selling Pasaya fashion and home textile fabrics and the other is Genua, displaying bedding and table sets under the Genua brand.

Prestigious local fashion brands such as Fly Now, Greyhound and Muung-Doo are among the company's regular customers.

Satin Textiles Co was established in 1986 as a small weaving factory in Phra Pradaeng, Samut Prakan with a registered capital of 25 million baht.

Initially, its products were made on small, old machines imported from Japan. At the time, most factories imitated foreign branded products without developing their own designs, making it difficult to expand into export markets.

Nine years later, the company built a new factory in Ratchaburi with modern facilities for weaving, dyeing and sewing. Today it employs 500 workers.

Mr Schle said the company projected total revenue of 700-750 million baht for 2002, down slightly from 800 million baht the previous year.

Earlier, the company had targeted revenue of one billion baht but the shift in production to serve the high-end market led to some disruptions in sales.

The company plans to double its production of fashion fabric to 1.2 million metres a month over the next three years with an investment of 300 million baht. Also in the pipeline are special fabrics that will use high technology.

The company began exporting in 1988 and has taken part in many international trade exhibitions, especially in Japan and Germany.

These were targeted to reach more customers. Three international exhibitions top the list for the world's makers of decorative textiles -- Heimtextile in Frankfurt, Decoste in Brussels, and Proposte in Como, Italy -- aimed at the upper market.