Paris – The announcement came on 25 July 2019, the immediate judicial
liquidation of the fashion brand Sonia Rykiel left 135 employees in a state
of shock as well as a large number of people and lovers of the fashion
house both in France and abroad. How did it come to this?
There was a crowd at the funeral of Sonia Rykiel on 1 September 2016 at
Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris. There was also a large crowd at the
inauguration of the ‘Allée Sonia Rykiel’ in September 2018, an
unprecedented distinction in Paris for a fashion designer, that coincided
with the celebration of 50 years of the brand. It was also a first in the
streets of Paris. In fact, neither Christian Dior nor Yves Saint Laurent
have streets named after them. And it was a special moment when the mayor
of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and then Nathalie Rykiel, Sonia Rykiel’s daughter,
said that “to name a street in Paris after a person, no matter what its
size, is to mark that person out for eternity.”
The heatwave overshadows current affairs
However, this week eternity seems to have shrunk to nothing. On Thursday
25 July, when the court in Paris pronounced immediate judicial liquidation,
the pain over the struggling brand was doubled. The very next day, on
Friday 26 July, 10 stores closed permanently and left employees out on the
pavement awaiting the outcome of negotiations about their severance pay.
But the most serious consequence is the disappearance of the Sonia Rykiel
fashion brand that has been part of the French national heritage since
1968. “Despite the support of the fashion industry for the employees of the
brand, we are all very upset by the feeble reaction from those in high
places,” confides an ex-employee of the fashion house to FashionUnited.
“Everyone who is someone was there to pay tribute at previous occasions and
sat on the first row for the catwalk shows but now no one has protested
against this decision. Not even the French Minister for Culture.” With a
heatwave at its peak and in the middle of the school holidays, the quiet
surrounding the news is chilling. When people are campaigning for women’s
rights, for control over their bodies and professional inequality, the
preservation of the name and memory of Sonia Rykiel, who always fought for
women’s freedom, seems more important than ever.
A burial and several broken marriages
So how did such a tragedy come to pass? There are several explanations.
“Sonia Rykiel always knew how to surround herself with the right people, it
was one of her great strengths; she knew how to delegate and leave things
to others,” one ex-employee recalls. Three men in particular supported her
for 20 years and participated in the success of the fashion house: the
former managing director, Gilles Carpentier, the commercial director,
Didier Grospiron, and her ex-son in law Simon Burstein.” The family firm
that always kept immaculate accounts entered a new phase with the arrival
of Nathalie Rykiel as chairman in 2007. The previous male managers were
thanked and Nathalie breathed new life into the fashion house. In 2008,
Sonia Rykiel employed 430 people, generated 108 million euros, operated 65
stores and sold its collections in more than 1,900 multi-brand stores in 30
countries. How did the brand, that up until then was self-financing and
that for a long time cut an exceptional figure in French fashion, tumble
into the red? Over the years, the turnover shrank, then stagnated in 2011
(90 million euros). In 2012, there was a surprise: the company sold 80
percent of Sonia Rykiel to the group First Heritage Brands, a holding
company owned by the Fung family, originally from Hong Kong, which also
owned the leather goods company Delvaux and the shoe company Robert
Clergerie.
The announced objective was to go international. After the death of the
designer in 2016 a quarter of the workforce was dismissed. Also the
creative direction of the brand changed a lot. After the Scotswoman April
Crichton (2011), and the Canadian Gerald da Conceicao (2012), Julie de
Libran was appointed in 2014 but left the fashion house in March 2019. “Her
talent was not in question but the marriage did not take,” says the
ex-employee who prefers to remain anonymous. “Sonia Rykiel is a fashion
house that needs humility, you have to honor its codes and in particular
you shouldn’t intellectualise it. The Rykiel woman was all about zest for
life, stripes, glitter, words and in particular humour”.
The curtain falls
But isn’t it because the entire industry and the times have changed?
“Madam Rykiel was demanding but she was loved and respected, she exchanged
ideas with her teams; the doors to her office above the Saint-Germain store
were always open and, as the historic hub of the brand, the building is
still owned by the Rykiel family today. It is one detail that did not help
in the search for new buyers. Among those interested was Emmanuel Diemoz,
former director of Balmain, who was also a candidate for taking over the
Carven brand a year ago, but did not reach an agreement with it. In the
end, after the tender for bids and the takeover of the Parisian firm, of
the dozen entities that declared their interest, just one bid reached the
judicial administrators. It was the bid by Nicole Levy and her son, Julien
Sedbon, entrepreneurs in the real estate sector who proposed to buy the
firm, hold on to 39 employees and to relaunch the brand online. But in the
end, it was not even defended at the Commercial Court. The die was cast!
Around the same time that Lola, the grand-daughter of Sonia Rykiel and
daughter of Nathalie, has launched her own brand named Pompom (stylish and
sporty fashion items with tassels and pompoms, a detail that she is fond
of), the brand that her grandmother founded has come to an end. “At the
beginning, a few months ago, there was no question of liquidation,” our
source concludes. “But since then the name of Sonia Rykiel seems to have
melted away in the face of general indifference. Today, this jewel of
French culture is being extinguished, with a second burial for Sonia
Rykiel. It is hard to believe, it’s a sudden end that none of us could have
imagined.”
This article was originally written and published in French for
FashionUnited France before being translated into English.
Photo’s: ©Sonia Rykiel, s/s 2019 – flagship Sonia Rykiel opening
in Madrid, May 2018 ©Manolo Yllera – Looks ©Sonia Rykiel s/s 2020
collection by Julie de Libran.
