Fashion victims: France looks to save its collapsing
prêt-à-porter brands
Online shopping is killing mid-market brands but the
government wants to hit back and rediscover France’s fashion ‘genius.’
BY GIORGIO
LEALI
DECEMBER
22, 2023 2:22 PM CET
PARIS —
When she was a teenager, Justine used to wear clothes her mother bought her
from popular mid-range French brands like Camaïeu and La Halle, which dominated
the French market in the early 2000s.
Now that
she is 35, those shops are shutting down. But that's not such a big deal for
Justine as, lying on the sofa, she keeps scrolling on the Vinted app looking
for her next order.
If Justine
isn't particularly worried about the demise of the fashion brands that defined
her youth, the French government certainly is.
French
mid-range clothing shops — which have been part of French daily life for
decades but little-known abroad — are facing a massive crisis, with hundreds of
shops closing and thousands of layoffs over the past two years. The government
now wants to save them and try and rekindle France's fashion
"genius."
In the new
year, the French economy ministry will come up with a “plan for fashion and
clothing," according to an official from the cabinet of SME minister
Olivia Grégoire’s cabinet, who was not authorized to be named. The plan is
still at an early stage as Grégoire and industry minister Roland Lescure will
be fishing for ideas in meeting with representatives from the sector in the
coming weeks.
While
legendary luxury French brands like Louis Vuitton and Hermès keep growing,
mid-range French brands are fighting to survive, squeezed by competition with
cheaper shops and online platforms like Lithuanian second-hand specialist
Vinted or China's ultra-cheap Shein.
“There is
an evolution in society itself. Premium and luxury are gaining market share,
entry-level too, and in the middle there's a very strong contraction,” said the
same government official.
“In the
mid-2000s, the major chains, particularly those at the heart of the storm, had
all the cards in their hands to stay ahead of the race in the mid-range
segment. They made strategic choices that proved fatal. They chose to open more
stores, to increase their volume at a time when consumers also wanted internet
sales, communication via social networks and, later of course, second-hand
goods,” said the same official, noting that mid-range brands have not been up
to that challenge.
The squeezed middle
More and
more French brands are closing their brick-and-mortar shops. In 2023, French
clothing and shoes brands including Naf Naf, Kookaï, André and Minelli had no
choice but to enter restructuring procedures, meaning they will have to close
shops to pay their creditors under the control of a court. Last year it was the
turn of clothing giant Camaïeu, which fired over 2,000 employees.
At the same
time, online platforms like Vinted or Shein are conquering the French market.
“In high
school, I would buy from Camaïeu, Cache-Cache, Orsay … But as soon as I moved
to a big city, I never went back to these shops,” said Justine, now a young
professional living in Paris and the prototype client of Vinted, the
second-hand shopping platform which is triumphing all over Europe, and
particularly in France, its biggest market in Europe.
If Justine isn't particularly worried about the demise
of the fashion brands that defined her youth, the French government certainly
is |
“I bought
most of my Christmas gifts on Vinted,” she said as she came back from the post
office where she picked up her weekly dose of parcels.
Shrinking
purchasing power and the rise of online shopping is one the main reasons behind
the crisis of traditional French brands, experts agree.
“Mid-range
shops are a lot less attractive compared to the 90s, 2000s,” noted Gildas
Minvielle, director of the economic observatory of the French Fashion Institute
(IFM) in Paris. According to surveys he conducted, budget constraints are the
main reason pushing the French to buy second-hand clothes, followed by
environmental concerns.
“With my
salary, I could not afford some of the clothes I bought on Vinted, and I don’t
really have the time to roam the thrift shops,” agreed Justine.
In the
first half of 2023, the volume of fashion sales in brick-and-mortar shops
dropped by nearly 5 percent year-on-year while online sales by non-French sites
like Vinted and Shein grew by over 3 percent, according to research firm
Kantar.
The sector
is suffering from a triple competition from online platforms, second-hand
shopping and luxury clothing, agreed Yann Rivoallan, president of the French
Federation of Female Pret à Porter. His No. 1 concern is not Vinted, but Shein,
the Chinese website where you can buy a skirt for €5.
“With my salary, I could not afford some of the
clothes I bought on Vinted, and I don’t really have the time to roam the thrift
shops,” agreed Justine |
“They give
the impression that fashion can be so cheap, but it is done at the expense of
social rights of workers,” he said, suggesting new measures like higher import
taxes or imposing fees for returning goods.
The success
of China’s fast-fashion giant already caught the French government’s attention
earlier this year with French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire asking anti-fraud
authorities to investigate the Chinese brand for potential anti-competitive
price practices.
While Le
Maire and NGOs slammed Shein and the fast-fashion sector for its particularly
heavy carbon footprint, Vinted prided itself itself on being an
environment-friendly alternative to buying new clothes.
For
Minvielle, the fashion economist, that argument should be nuanced as some
consumers could be encouraged to buy even more new clothes, knowing that they
can immediately resell them on platforms like Vinted if they don’t like them.
“It can encourage consumption,” he said.
Twice a
month Justine, the Vinted-enthusiast, goes to the post office to resell clothes
she doesn’t like anymore, some of them are new. But she doesn’t feel that
Vinted is pushing her to buy and consume more.
“Vinted
seems to encourage impulse buying but the reality is different: since you can’t
return anything and have to sell yourself the items you don’t like, you think
twice before pressing ‘buy’.”
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