Shein and Temu's Dominance Pushes French Menswear Brand Atlas for Men into Receivership

French menswear brand Atlas for Men has been placed in judicial receivership on August 26, facing significant market pressure from the aggressive communications campaigns of Chinese low-cost e-tailers Shein and Temu, which have reportedly made the brand "virtually invisible" to consumers. The court has set a monitoring period of six months to oversee the situation.

This development, reported by French outlet L’Informé, comes just over three years after Atlas for Men was acquired by Motion Equity Partners from Latour Capital, which had initially purchased the distance-selling specialist in 2016. Marc Delamarre, who founded Atlas for Men in 1999 and has served as its CEO ever since, confirmed to FashionNetwork.com that the brand has been severely impacted by intensified competition within the advertising and SEO landscape.

Delamarre elaborated on the root cause of this heightened competition, attributing it to the ripple effects of Donald Trump’s customs duties imposed on Chinese products entering the US market. He explained that in the second quarter of 2025, major Chinese e-tailers redirected their investment and advertising budgets from the USA to Europe. This strategic shift, according to Delamarre, had the profound consequence of rendering many French e-commerce sites "all but invisible" in the increasingly crowded European digital marketplace.

The CEO's observations are corroborated by recent data from Worldpanel by Numerator (formerly Kantar), which ranks Shein and Temu as the fifth and sixth largest online fashion retailers in the French market. Notably, Temu secured the top position for menswear sales during the first half of the year, underscoring the formidable challenge posed by these low-cost giants in Atlas for Men’s core segment.

Atlas for Men operates through both a traditional mail-order catalogue and an e-shop, primarily catering to male consumers aged 40 and above seeking affordably priced clothing available in sizes up to 5XL. The brand expanded its product offering to include womenswear in 2007. Originally an offshoot of the distance-selling company Éditions Atlas, Atlas for Men recently claimed a customer base of 10 million and a workforce exceeding 200 employees, with operations spanning 12 markets including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Poland.