French Ready-to-Wear Faces a Devastating Crisis as Brands Struggle to Survive

The French ready-to-wear sector is facing a significant crisis, marked by a wave of bankruptcies, receiverships, and liquidations throughout 2025. Brands like IKKS, recently changing ownership but cutting half its staff, and JOTT, placed in receivership, exemplify the struggles. Anne Fontaine’s safeguard plan approval offers a small glimmer of hope, but follows the recent disappearances of Camaïeu, Kookaï, Jennyfer, André, San Marina, Minelli, Comptoir des Cotonniers, Princesse Tam Tam, and Kaporal, painting a bleak picture for the industry.

The scale of the decline is stark. Nearly 1,500 clothing boutiques closed in France in 2024, according to a parliamentary report. The textile industry workforce has dramatically shrunk, from 400,000 in the 1970s to just 60,000 today, a figure that excludes the 70,000 employed in retail stores as of late 2023. This contraction comes after traditional players successfully navigated the shift to online sales, as well as the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and inflation.

The current pressures stem from the rise of two key competitors: the second-hand market and ultra-fast fashion retailers. Gildas Minvielle, Director of the Economic Observatory at the French Fashion Institute (IFM), describes this as a “profound upheaval.” The IFM reports that these two channels now represent 13% of sales by value and nearly 30% of total volume purchased. This significant market share gain is “very damaging” to established brands, particularly in a stagnant market.

The affordability of ultra-fast fashion is a major driver of this shift. Shein and Temu offer items at an average price of just €9 – roughly one-third of the cost of comparable mid-range products. This “impoverishment” of the market is particularly impactful given current economic pressures and weakened consumer purchasing power.

The roots of the current crisis extend back to the 1990s, with the arrival of first-generation fast-fashion brands like Zara and H&M. These retailers introduced rapidly changing collections designed to encourage frequent purchases. Benoît Heilbrunn, a philosopher and marketing professor at ESCP Business School, notes that French chains have struggled to compete, lacking a comparable industrial model and relying on 97% imported textiles.

A critical issue, according to Heilbrunn, is a lack of innovation and a failure to define a compelling brand identity. French textile brands have, in his view, “had nothing to say for years.” This sentiment is echoed by Françoise Clément, a fashion and retail expert, who points to brands that have remained in their “comfort zone,” relying on promotions rather than creating genuine value.

Clément uses the metaphor of an hourglass to describe the current market structure. The luxury and “heritage” brands at the top remain strong due to their prestige, while the lower end is locked in a destructive race to the bottom on price. The mid-range segment, squeezed between these two extremes, is the most vulnerable.

To survive, mid-range brands must “diversify and premiumise,” avoiding direct imitation of fast fashion. Clément emphasizes the need for a balance of “quality, attractiveness, innovation, and desirability,” citing examples like Lacoste, Aigle, Le Slip Français (with its focus on French production), and Decathlon (combining accessibility with innovation). She insists that the crisis is “not inevitable” and that opportunities exist for proactive brands.

The annual State of Fashion BoF-McKinsey report highlights key strategic areas for development, including the integration of artificial intelligence, diversification of production sites to mitigate the impact of international tariffs, a move upmarket, and the incorporation of second-hand offerings. This represents a substantial undertaking, but one that is deemed necessary for the future of the French ready-to-wear sector.