Interview: – Faced with the black row that is rocking the fashion industry, the president of the French Federation of Ready-to-Wear Women’s Clothing, Yann Rivolan, sees the French clothing market in full mutation to adapt to new consumption patterns.
Kookai, Camaïeu, Cop Copine, Pimkie… These women’s ready-to-wear brands, most of which were born in the 1980s and 90s, have won a special place in the hearts of French women. But after a series of crises, bankruptcies and receipts, they disappeared from the fashion market one after the other. And the list could go on and on. As today’s brands no longer exist solely to offer wardrobe and style, they are now integrating environmental, societal and economic concerns into their clothing design while playing into the ubiquitous social media. Jan Rivolain, president of the French Federation of Women’s Ready-to-Wear, looks back at the reasons for the failure and suggests ways to innovate.
Madame Figaro: How do you explain that these French brands, which were very successful in the 1990s, are simultaneously collapsing today?
Ian Rivoalan: The succession of crises has a lot to do with it. We have an inflationary crisis, an energy crisis that has led to a logistics crisis, and with it the complexity of being able to deliver goods on time. But also the Covid crisis, which has left many traces, including two months of rent, when the brands closed shop and no longer circulated. All this weakens any society. Added to this are the structural phenomena that should have forced these brands to change models. I think of twenty-five years of digital development that has pushed many of them to develop internationally. However, some brands have not been able to “internationalize” because they have not been able to work on a strong image on social networks, as well as avoid the competition of ultra-fast fashion. We see this, for example, with Shein, a Chinese company that has been established for several years and is growing by 100% every year. In 2022, it made a turnover of 30 billion dollars; 15 billion in 2021, and 9 billion in 2020. This development is explained by the extreme specialization in data management, organization and communication and the ability to be extremely effective on TikTok. The Chinese company recruits thousands of influencers there to run ads boasting its low prices, while behind the scenes are deplorable working conditions. Employees are exploited, they work up to 75 hours a week, with barely one day off a year.
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The proportion of consumers devoted to online shopping is increasing slightly each year. How do you see the future of shopping in France?
Physical shopping is not dead, it remains largely dominant in France, where it accounts for 80% of purchases. We shop because there is a “sensual desire” that is still just as important. The first time you try on clothes, whether they fit or not, there’s a feeling. The opportunity to try it in the store is considered a pleasure, because we have a sales assistant, a place that knows how to make the consumer happy. And I would say that the question is not “does it go online or in-store” but “how can a brand offer an alternative between these two means?” Consumers want a great in-store experience, such as superior service, so they can try it at home. The future of shopping will depend on this mix. And then there is this question. “Why do we buy a product?” Do I want to buy new because I want something new, in the era of time? Or do I want to buy a used product for environmental or price reasons? When we see that 5 million people go to France every day on Vinted, we understand that buying second hand has become a habit that is spreading.
Price appears more and more as a determining factor in times of weakened purchasing power. What are French fashion brands’ weapons to counter the rise of ultra-fast fashion and second-hand?
When a brand has a strong image, price becomes less central in the purchase arbitrage. But it should be kept in mind that the consumer has been used to buying at a discount for more than fifteen years. Moreover, we see it. when a brand discounts, mass purchases are directly triggered. The difference will be played in the ability to meet the increasingly precise expectations of consumers; they want to be able to click and dial, make reservations or even make simpler exchanges. Everything is highlighted by this issue of supply and the possibility to update the range more easily, as well as being very close to the customer and being able to understand his taste.
Independent shops and big brands are struggling to recover the activity levels they had before the health crisis, with footfall plummeting. What about window shopping? It is strolling consumers who end up in gangs “out of date» ?
If we take the case of shopping malls, they also have to reinvent themselves. Since they manage to create “experiences”, I’m thinking for example of live concerts and simultaneously in other malls of the same group, they manage to maintain their social function. Consumers can come together to have a good time. During Covid we saw that you can communicate at home on your phone. But we always have to find each other, that’s why there are cinemas and shopping centers too. Young people are no exception. If we take the cinema as an example, they also meet there to see strong films that talk about their lives, which will evoke emotions. They still need this tangible experience, except that the new generation has been shaped from the start by a fully digitized universe driven by social media. He has a very strong fluidity between the virtual and physical universes, the latter still just as important, but just in arbitrage compared to his expectations.
Source: Le Figaro
