3 questions for . . . Frédéric Biousse CEO, SMCP Group

‘The market is increasingly organised around mono-brand boutiques’.

Frédéric Biousse, Comptoir des Cotonniers CEO and then participant in the SMPC Group with partners Elie Kouby, Evelyne Chétrite and Judith Milgrom, excels at the art of developing ‘contemporary brands’ imbued with the ‘French Touch’.

The SMCP Group is now present in 14 countries with 714 points of sale directly managed by the Group. Foreign revenues account for 40 percent of your turnover and the target is 70 percent for 2018. Are international sales – in retail rather than wholesale – your growth engine?

It’s logical: you start with the local market and when that works you invest the right amount of profits in foreign development. In fashion, markets are completely global, and with France the world’s top tourist destination, the stronger we are here, the more tourists see us and then ask for us.

So for us as French brands, the strategy was first to be strong at home and then to become established in Europe’s major capitals. Once that works, you develop in European countries, and then you go even further. For us, that was the United States and now it’s Asia.

But you have to understand that there are two business models. There’s the ‘old’ model based on wholesale. And then there’s the new way to manage a fashion business, and that’s through retail.

The ‘elders’ opened some boutiques in France and then went on to create several points of sale internationally in multi-brand stores, giving them almost instant global presence. That presence was, however, fragile. Your partners can stop from one day to the next, and if you are only in multi-brand stores, then you no longer have an international showcase.

Today, it no longer works like that. You’re faced with extremely well organized behemoths with access to enormous capital. The market is increasingly organised around mono-brand boutiques.

But this strategy of opening directly managed mono-brand boutiques requires an extremely solid financial foundation. Does that stop the development of family-scale brands?

That depends on . . . if it’s a rich family (laughs). Retail is both wonderful when it starts to work and difficult in the beginning, because you have to invest a lot of money before you see a profit. I often meet very talented young designers but without money, and they ask me how to go forward. I take the time to talk about their brand and products, and I tell them that opening a boutique is certainly the quickest way to become known and to succeed. Selling €3,000 or €5,000 of merchandise to a multi-brand doesn’t bring in much anymore, as opposed to 10 or 15 years ago. It’s true, to have a boutique in Paris, you have to pay key money, finance renovations, etc. It’s a real obstacle to getting started (…).

But once that obstacle is overcome, each brand has its strategy. For me, products make all the difference. Buyers for the big department stores place a lot of importance on their freedom to choose, so it’s the product above all that has to interest them. That’s why it’s important to work on your points of sale and make them as visible as possible.

For us, we started to have important export contacts when we opened our first boutique in London. But the biggest growth happened after we opened in New York, when, all of a sudden, we had requests from China and around the world. There are places where you have to be, even if it’s just a pop-up store. And in the quest to be visible to buyers, it’s really better to have a pop-up store in Soho rather than a boutique ‘somewhere’ in Germany.

Today, your Sandro, Maje and Claudie Pierlot brands are still emblematic of the ‘French Touch’. How do you define this phenomenon and what makes you stand out internationally?

I think we have solid savoir-faire for creating fashion products that are trendy, unself-conscious, and full of soul. And in this niche, foreign brands are a bit sterile. In fact, the French are the exceptions in this category. We know how to export, not just fashion but also a rather unique, practical, quick-reacting, retail-based business model with services, client relations, store concept and communications campaigns.

Going to the United States and declaring ourselves Parisian brands created a positive precedent. But what makes the difference today are the products’ pertinence and the processes behind them. It’s essential for us to control our concept so that our niche clients who travel recognize our brand and we maintain global coherency. American department stores, however, work for the most part only by wholesale, which we refused. When we opened our concessions, they were very surprised by our set-up procedures. We showed up with our teams, our concept, and our systems for automatic re-orders and new collections . . .

And that’s what makes the difference for all the French brands that succeed. It’s the ability to take risks and move quickly. And speed in these markets is the key.