The globe's biggest luxury brands have dreamt of India's vast consumer base for decades, but navigating the market has proven to be a complex task.

French retailer Galeries Lafayette is the latest to try its luck, opening its first Indian store on Sunday: a sprawling five-floor outlet in Mumbai, the country's financial capital.

Its splashy foray into the market is getting a local boost from the fashion arm of the Aditya Birla Group, a major Indian conglomerate.

Luxury expert and Comite Colbert CEO Benedicte Epinay called the arrival of the iconic French department store "an important step".

India, which has a 1.4 billion population, offers what Epinay called a "a promising market, but still a complicated one".

Brands must not only overcome high customs duties, a cumbersome bureaucracy

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