On Thursday, 40 employees of Jean Paul Gaultier SAS demonstrated in Paris, near the headquarters of Puig, the company's majority stakeholder, against the planned job cuts at the French Maison.
In September, the French designer announced that he would close his women’s and men’s lines due to commercial constraints. In fact, Puig, the Spanish Group which has acquired the French fashion house in 2011, declared that the designer would only focus on developing Haute Couture, and on broadening the beauty and fragrances offering, next to exploring interior design and artistic collaborations.
According to WWD, the work council said that it “deplores the extent of the reorganization and the number of redundancies, even though the economic situation of the Puig group is excellent’’, adding that the reorganization plan calls for 29 layoffs, related to the closure of boutiques and shop-in-shops, and further emphasized that 13 positions, that are currently either vacant or occupied by term employees, are to be eliminated.
The designer hasn’t commented on the situation yet.
