''New contemporary, affordable brands now choose to manufacture in France, reviving the traditions and skills that had seemed to be disappearing'', explains Frédéric Martin-Bernard, who conducted this inquiry for Promas List .

To follow the comments that he collected from the founders of these French brands : Julien Tuffery (Kiplay Vintage, Tuffery); Guillaume Gibault (Le Slip Français), Thomas Huriez (1083), Laurent Bourven and Marc Asseily (Arpenteur), Deborah Neuberg (De Bonne Facture), Hugues Fauchard and Rémi Bats (Uniforme), Alexandre Clary (Kidur).

“If you want to change the world, start by changing your briefs!” announced Guillaume Gibault in 2011. This young HEC Paris graduate quickly mastered the art of marketing with catchy statements. He also saw himself as an entrepreneur and had a strong desire to relaunch made in France. He began with a men’s underwear label that he called Le Slip Français. Twelve years later, this blue-white-red label has become an ongoing success story. A few seasons ago, he turned his focus to women by proposing a fairly complete ready-to-wear wardrobe for dressing them from head to toe. All his products are made by independent contractors in metropolitan France who have been able to preserve and perpetuate their skills despite successive crises and competition from low-priced, long-distance imports.

So FAR so Near

This argument for local manufacturing rapidly seduced consumers. At the time, though people were speaking of a “short circuit” in other industries such as food, it was far from being a given in the clothing industry. Instead, the trend was to multiply collections, create special editions and introduce capsule collections or collaborations.
Le Slip Français

Then in April 2013, the Rana Plaza building collapse in Dacca (Bangladesh) raised the veil on the deplorable working conditions of fast fashion workers on the other side of the world. This was followed by Covid-19 in 2020 that imposed wearing masks, blocking long-distance imports and emphasizing only French manufacturing in the country of haute couture and luxury ready-to-wear where. In France there was neither the personnel nor the factories to produce in large quantities. At the height of the pandemic, this national incompetence made a huge impression. So much so that, three years later in March 2023, Guillaume Gibault succeeded in the largest fundraising ever recorded on the lita.co crowdfunding site – no less than 2242 investors gave a total of 3.58 million euros – to set up his own factory that will be called Les Ateliers du Slip.

Supporting and revitalizing SKILLS

Thomas Huriez has been an avid defender of made in France for ten years. With his 1083 jeans label – the distance in kilometers that separate the two cities farthest away from each other in metropolitan France where 100% of the brand’s pieces are manufactured – he alerted the general public about the disappearing garment manufacturing trades and skills and gradually set up a production line for jeans. Alongside these single-product brands that have developed thanks to the internet, social media and e-commerce, other more fashion-oriented labels have also been created and rely on local manufacturing without making it their main focus of communication.

“Since Arpenteur began 12 years ago, our collections have been made in France”, explains Laurent Bourven, co-founder, with Marc Asseily, of this Lyon-based label with a neo-sportswear style. And he continues: “Our idea was that every tourist likes to bring home locally-made products when they travel, that fashion is a French specialty that loses meaning when it is not manufactured nationally and that our country used to have a real men’s ready-to-wear industry… Also, we wanted to be near the people who produce our models and be able to regularly visit their workshops to help sustain their unique traditions and skills.”

SELECTED highly-qualified manufacturers

Deborah Neuberg of the De Bonne Facture brand has also sought to emphasize and surround herself with the beautiful craftmanship of specialists since she began her company in 2013. She also prefers to talk about “made by” rather than “made in” though most of her collections are produced in France. “Made in is not a sufficient term for judging a product’s quality. We can find all levels of quality in the French manufacturing industry as we can in China or in any other country. This is why I prefer focusing on each of my partner workshops, emphasizing their skills, unique touches, techniques and traditions that are sometimes linked to their industrial region or area”, explains the Parisian designer. She uses, for example, manufacturers in the Tarn region for her pieces with sleeves or sailor sweater specialists from Brittany to produce her knit tops.
Uniforme

Hugues Fauchard and Rémi Bats, the designers behind the Uniforme brand, also rely on the expertise of regional workshops to manufacture their wardrobe of neo-classic, essential pieces. In 2000, these Parisians left the French capital to establish themselves near Nantes so they could be closer to manufacturers in Western France and the Loire Region, areas that had, in the past, been a center for men’s ready-to-wear production.

QUALITY and integrity

“Our models are entirely made in France but we don’t focus on this”, continues Laurent Bourven at Arpenteur who exports 80% of his production. “We have had a lot of positive feedback on the quality of our products. They are made by specialists that we have discovered in different regions, each with specific manufacturing traditions. In a way, their quality is linked with the idea of being made in France. But making a big deal of this isn’t in keeping with our brand spirit and isn’t a unique enough concept to develop a long-term business around it. Our style, cut, materials, manufacturing and finishings must have high standards to maintain our loyal customers.”

Deborah Neuberg also says that “mentioning where something is manufactured adds charm to the clothes but is not information that plays a large role in a customer’s buying decision.”

Alexandre Clary, owner of the C2S company that revived the Kidur label in 2018, makes the same observation: “Made in France is not a major criteria, it’s just another advantage. We prefer to highlight our brand’s history and skills plus mention our factory in Courlay. This authentic aspect has a strong appeal in Japan and South Korea. These markets like our integrity, the coherence between what we were before and what we have become plus our reputation as a manufacturer that perfectly masters its activity.”

Manufacturers for GENERATIONS

As a specialist in work garments since 1921, the manufacturer Kiplay had the idea, in 2016, to create an everyday Kiplay Vintage line. Two years earlier, Julien Tuffery had begun to rejuvenate the jeans brand that bore his family’s name by showcasing the skills of a workshop which had specialized in denim since his great-grandfather founded the company.

“Besides jeans made in France, clients today want quality articles, made in a well-thought-out way, that also respect the environment”, observes the young director who is currently expanding his Florac-based workshops in the Aveyron region to progressively increase his production capacity. “Since the Tuffery product is attractive our company is super-clean and our manufactures focus on producing little waste, we had often been approached by foreign buyers but unfortunately our production capabilities were limited. Now we can meet their requests. We are beginning to have Japanese distributors. Professional buyers appreciate that we are modern, authentic, ecological, handcrafted and also family-run.”

Comments collected by Frédéric Martin-Bernard for Promas List