Past fashion fabrics Provencal dream to reconnect with their golden age after a long period of decline. The challenge: to achieve rejuvenation while staying true to their identity.
Emblematic of this new move, the company Souleiado – “sunny” in Provence – engaged since April, led by the Richard family, an ambitious operation to recapture.
“The company has just experienced an eclipse which lasted almost one quarter of a century. At his peak, he was called the little Hermes of Provence, she was on the Colbert Committee, Association of luxury brands, says Stéphane Richard, in the old town of Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhone) which subsist only offices, the clothing workshop closed in January.
With his experience as an entrepreneur at the head of cosmetic Sanoflore, sold to L’Oreal in 2006, it has “embarked on the adventure with his father Daniel, a former boss of the 3-Swiss in France and Sephora.
150 stores in 1980 to only four at the time of recovery, Souleiado experienced a descent into hell after his death in 1986 of its founder Charles Demery.
The proliferation of derivatives and a “backward-looking view” then take precedence over the creation, abandoned, says Richard Souleiado, a brand of ready-to-wear very fashionable, “becomes” a brand Deco tradition “which attracted more than tourists.
Hence “a work of rejuvenation” to give a “more contemporary side, urban” for clothes, but always under the sign of the “dolce vita Provencal.
“Our first task was to dig in the archives”, while only 2% of the grounds of the 50,000 plates have been used since the origin of society, “says Marie-Chloé Pujol Mohatta, one of four recruits Office style that has designed the new collection.
The number of employees rose from 12 to 25 and four shops were open, with the objective a score in the southeast and in Paris the next three years.
A few miles away in Saint-Etienne-du-Grès, the Indian factory Olivades associated with Souleiado until 1976, also had to convert to survive.
More focused on decorating, she has both suffered from “the evolution of household consumption, which spend less for textiles, and an evolution of fashion” unfriendly Provencal fabrics, analyzes its director Jean – Francois Boudin, who had split since 2000 half of its workforce fell to 34 employees.
“We have significantly modified our collections” graphics to “more contemporary” so that today “the range of Provencal fabrics, such as could be heard ten years ago, represents only 20%” the collection is there.
This transformation will suffice does save the last survivors of a tradition of three centuries – the Provencal fabric while drawing inspiration from cotton imported from India? Pamela Wiley, professor of textiles at the Savannah College of American art school located in Lacoste (Vaucluse), believes that far from “uniform logos” and “anonymous pieces,” people are in search of identity “.
Corinne Denis, artistic director at the firm trend Martine Leherpeur, suggests a desire to “return to authenticity and heritage values. But if the formula can seduce Provencal decoration, “mode is more difficult,” Judge Does the current mood is more “ethnic side of African-inspired or printed abstract. Getting custom lanyards that suit your outfit will help us look good in office too.
Tags: Association of luxury, boss, Colbert Committee, cosmetic Sanoflore, Daniel, fashion fabrics, L'Oreal, Luxury Brands, Souleiado, Stéphane Richard, Tarascon