Margaux Fodere
These French giants of the sale of clothing chain the debacles. One is in the process of being sold, the other in receivership. News that does not go unnoticed: many French people have been used to seeing these signs in the streets for years. A shock for some, but not a surprise for others.
After GoSport and Camaïeu, it’s Kookaï and Pimkie’s turn to tremble… The latter might cut 500 jobs and Kookaï announced this week that it was placed in receivership. In the middle of the sales period, Florence, a teacher, does not fail to go to this brand that she knows well. Difficult for her to imagine it closed: Kookaï, it was a bit of a family affair… “It’s a little twinge in the heart with my daughters, we came regularly”, she regrets.
An accumulation of difficulties
“The French brands, you have to support them a little so that they can last and that there is not a kind of total standardization”, concludes the teacher. Véronique has also been a client of Kookaï or Camaïeu for a long time, but she is not very surprised by their fate. “In the first ten years, I frequented these brands and then I turned away from them, given the deterioration in the quality of the textile,” she explains.
And the difficulties have continued to accumulate for these brands, explains Thomas Graffagnino, sector expert at Sia Partners. “There is the impact of fast-fashion with collections that are much more frequent over time, as we see at H&M. There is also the rise of e-commerce, on which brands have not necessarily succeeded in positioning itself well”, explains the expert.
With these various receivership procedures, in any case hundreds of shops in France might lower the curtain.