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Inside Soeur’s Plans to Go From French Girl Favourite to Global Powerhouse

With a new heavyweight backer in Italian firm Style Capital — which helped Zimmermann secure a billion dollar valuation — the French contemporary womenswear brand has ambitions to go global. But it sits in a competitive and hard-to-crack category.

In fashion, there’s no greater compliment than dressing like a French girl.

The industry has long been captivated with French women who personify the effortlessly cool approach to style, such as Coco Chanel in the 1920s, Brigitte Bardot in the 1960s and more modern day influencers like Jeanne Damas, Anne-Laure Mais and Camille Charriere. And since the early 2000s, contemporary French brands — The Kooples, Zadig & Voltaire, Maje, Sandro — have packaged the aesthetic into accessibly-priced sweaters, slip skirts and blazers for the international masses. Last year, French girl favourites Sézane and Rouje continued their stateside expansion, opening stores in Los Angeles and New York.

15-year-old French womenswear start-up Soeur wants to be next.

It’s got the necessary backing. Soeur was sold in September to Style Capital — the Italian investment fund that sold Australian womenswear brand Zimmermann to private equity firm Advent International, at a reported $1.15 billion. With that muscle behind them, Soeur wants to grow outside its home market, beginning with its first UK store in London’s Shoreditch neighbourhood, set to open on Jan. 20. Soeur already has 48 boutiques, mostly around 50 square metres. The London store, which will be over 100 square metres, will be the first in a string of new openings — focussed on Europe for now — aimed at positioning the brand as a real fashion power player.

“The visuals on our website are on par with big luxury brands, but our stores don’t show the strength of the brand,” said Freja Day, Soeur’s chief executive.

Already in 450 doors, including Galeries Lafayette and Harvey Nichols, the brand wants to grow its slate of wholesale partners, particularly in Italy and Spain. All the while, Soeur is keeping an eye on the US, where it has a budding e-commerce business and a few small wholesale accounts, such as the boutique Clic. The brand reached €50 million ($54 million) in sales in 2023, up 40 percent from 2022. It expects to grow around 30 percent in 2024.

But scaling a local brand — even with a strong aesthetic and powerful backer — comes with a number of challenges. Soeur will have to attract shoppers who may not know its name, while continuing to drive excitement among customers in its home base. The contemporary category is notoriously tough to crack. Priced between luxury and fast fashion, it faces competition from both — as well as resale.

Even as inflation eases, it’s a particularly difficult time for brands at the price point, said Marguerite Le Rolland, Euromonitor’s head of apparel and footwear. Plus, blockbuster exits are rare in contemporary: some of the categories’ biggest brands, including Isabel Marant and Ganni, have yet to find buyers.

“The market conditions are toughening up for mid-priced brands,” said Le Rolland. “There is market polarisation, and more consumers are being more careful with their fashion spending in general.”

Creative Liberties

Founded by sisters Domitille and Angélique Brion in 2008, Soeur is known for its vintage-inspired finishes and prints crafted in-house. Prices run from around $60 for T-shirts to $1,500 for shearling coats. Sleek coats, soft vests, tailored trousers, and embroidered and empire-collar blouses fill out the collections.

The dominance of “quiet luxury” has made Soeur’s timeless look trendy, said Roberta Benaglia, CEO of Style Capital. As luxury prices continue to rise, consumers will want other options and wholesale partners are looking for affordable, wearable brands, said Benaglia.

“We weren’t created by a business person who came out of business school and saw a gap in fashion,” said Day. “That’s the DNA of the brand. We have a design process that’s very close to the way that they work in luxury.”

The brand could position itself as a challenger to those at the higher end of the contemporary market, like Toteme, which has seen booming demand for its sophisticated, easy-to-wear silhouettes priced just below labels like Khaite or The Row, said Bengalia. Plus, focussing on that consumer means targeting a smaller slice of the expansive contemporary market, where it’s easy to get lost among undifferentiated brands.

Led by creative director and founder Domatille Brion, Soeur sees design as its biggest strength, said Day. The brand puts creativity first, even if it means injecting unpredictability into the business.

“If next season [Brion] wants to do all linen, she will do all linen … it’s very important that her vision is heard,” said Day. “It’s difficult to be a design-driven brand, but this is the bet that we’re making.”

That said, the product is its best marketing tool, said Day. This year, Soeur will widen its bag and accessory assortment and introduce more upscale fabrics, like washed silks, in apparel. Bags, including its asymmetrical moon-shaped Winona launched in October, are especially effective tools in growing margins and helping the brand recruit younger customers.

A Matter of Scale

To win in the contemporary category, brands need an early edge in positioning. For Isabel Marant, it was strong wholesale distribution; for Sézane it was a close connection with its community through its direct-to-consumer model. Soeur’s retail network is a big advantage, said Benaglia.

“The retail machine is already in place, we just have to help them export their experience to the international market,” said Benaglia.

Beyond its own stores, Soeur will grow through wholesale, which is a cost-effective way to gain footing in a new market, said Le Rolland.

Soeur will also use collaborations to get in front of new customers. In 2023, Soeur debuted a capsule collection aimed at widening its appeal with mass-market windbreaker brand K-Way in September, and worked with luxury loafer maker JM Weston on a shoe to show it could play at the higher-end in October.

Soeur’s capsule collection with American writer and influencer Leandra Cohen in June boosted sales in the region: around 80 percent of Soeur’s sales that month came from the US (overall, the region brought in just 7 percent in 2023). It also helped push Soeur as what Day calls “a cultural brand,” — a label for those in the know. To continue to build on that idea, Soeur will roll out a home goods edit curated by Sophie Pinet, editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest France, this year.

“Brands do well in a saturated market because they are able to tell a story and build a community: they hit the right note with some demographics,” said Le Rolland.

Some bondholders had brought a case against German landlord’s contentious move

German property group Adler’s restructuring suffered a setback on Tuesday after a London court overruled an earlier decision that gave the green light to a plan designed to stave off insolvency.

The Court of Appeal said that a lower court in April “erred in principle” by approving a debt restructuring that extended some of Adler’s bond maturities and allowed it to borrow another €938mn.

The ruling is a victory for a group of bondholders who brought the appeal and opposed the restructuring, which they said unfairly favoured some creditors over others.

A decade of aggressive expansion turned Adler into one of Germany’s largest landlords with a portfolio at one point of 70,000 apartments. But Adler has been fighting for survival since late 2021 when short seller Viceroy Research accused the company of inflating its balance sheet and conducting undisclosed related party transactions.

Adler hired KPMG to conduct a forensic investigation into the allegations. The investigation by the Big Four firm did not uncover evidence of fraud but found widespread governance and compliance shortcomings.

As part of the contentious restructuring, Adler suspended interest payments on €3.2bn of outstanding bonds and raised fresh funds from existing bondholders.

It spared Adler from collapse as much of the new cash was used to repay bonds that were maturing in 2023 and this year, buying the company time to sell down assets in an orderly way.

However, owners of the longest-dated bonds, maturing in 2029, launched an appeal in London, claiming they were put at a disadvantage versus other bondholders. Including bank debt, the group has €6.5bn of financial liabilities.

Despite the ruling, Adler said it would “continue its restructuring path as planned”. The company added in a statement that German law applied to the restructuring and “the terms and conditions of the bonds remain valid regardless of the decision”.

The Court of Appeal’s decision could set a precedent for European companies seeking to carry out debt restructurings through London’s courts, potentially limiting their ability to drive through deals that benefit one group of creditors over another.

The judgment was “hugely important” and restructuring experts would be “poring over” it, said Kate Stephenson, partner in European restructuring at law firm Kirkland & Ellis.

In 2022, Germany’s financial watchdog BaFin concluded that in 2019 Adler had inflated its balance sheet by €3.9bn and its earnings by €543mn. In December, BaFin said that it uncovered additional accounting mistakes in Adler’s 2020 and 2021 results.

Telegram is rolling out a bunch of upgrades as part of its January feature drop including “view-once” video and audio messages, the ability to pause recording while sending a video or an audio message, and new read-time controls.

The app introduced “view-once” photos and videos in one-on-one chat in September 2023. Now, the company is extending this feature to voice and video messages. Users can hit the mic icon to start recording and then pull up to tap on the “view-once” icon to allow the recipient to hear the voice message or look at the video message just once.

Additionally, Telegram is rolling out the ability to pause and resume recording for voice and video messages through the same menu.

Telegram is also adding a way for people to see when the recipient reads your message in one-on-one private chats. You can turn this feature off in the settings.

The company is also introducing some new features for paid users. Now, premium users can hide their read time but still can look at someone else’s read time if they share it publicly.

Plus, paid users can pick who can send them messages first. They can select either “Everyone” or “My Contacts and Premium User.”

Last month, Telegram launched new features for better channel discovery and customization. Later in the month, it introduced improved calls with end-to-end encryption protection that hog less of your phone’s battery. The company also updated its bot platform to let bots react to messages, manage reactions, quotes and links, and send replies to other chats or topics.

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With budgets down or flat there's a return to conservative cuts, and streetwear is in the rearview mirror.

The momentum from Milan continued to build on strong tailoring, with the Paris collections leaving no doubt that we have left hypebeasts behind and entered into a new era of elevated elegance and impeccable cuts. Buyers are keen to snap up pieces that can be cornerstones of grown-up wardrobes, or fit effortlessly in with existing classics.

Single- or double-breasted suit jackets paired with well-cut trousers and long coats were a key silhouette, while colors were soothing and mostly monochromatic in chocolates, charcoal, khaki or cream, with touches of soft pinks or sky.

For all the obituaries written about the suit and tie, it made a comeback, while “Grandpa-core” with cozy knits and cardigans is starting to bubble up for a softer take on classic dressing. Chocolate brown is the next key color, according to several buyers.

“There was an elegant and modern wardrobe with refined classics,” said Galeries Lafayette menswear officer and buying director Alice Feillard. “It was a season full of impeccable, sophisticated and tailored silhouettes, from classic tailoring to elevated and twisted classics,” she said.

Dries Van Noten was by far the favorite collection of the week. He wanted an “elegant look for young guys,” and hit that mark to the delight of buyers who are eager to get their hands on his coats, tailored cargos and slim-lined shoes.

Jonathan Anderson’s nearly pantsless collection for Loewe with his roomy trench coats and cable-knit cardigans was also highly coveted, while Kim Jones’ magical mirror-go-round runway, showcasing couture tailoring for men, was also a standout. At Valentino, Pierpaolo Piccioli’s masterful work on soft suits and overcoats with added embellishments was a new twist on the codes of workwear and masculinity.

Oustiside of the major houses, Auralee has been hovering just under-the-radar for a while, and made many buyers’ lists this season, with Ryota Iwai’s pairing of purple and green, while Amiri’s red carpet-inspired collection played on pinks and browns. Both were cited for their use of color.

Rick Owens’ intimate open house was cited as best format for its up close and personal presentation, while Kenzo’s show at the newly revamped Bibliothèque Nationale was beloved, if more for the venue than the collection.

There were still spectacles — see Pharrell Williams’ Louis Vuitton rodeo — that kept the party spirit high, but buyers were drawn toward quieter presentations.

“There was an intimacy to the season with an enhanced focus on craft, construction, and couture-like detailing with many brands choosing to show their collections within their own maisons…providing a great opportunity to see the clothing up close and personal,” said Neiman Marcus senior editorial director Bruce Pask.

Buyers were blunt about their budgets. While the menswear market is growing, overall spend is slightly reduced or mostly flat, with a concentration on investing more on well-performing current brands than expanding their offerings.

Outside of the department stores, smaller boutiques were clear they are looking for more commercial pieces. “Against the backdrop of a global economic climate that is not particularly clear, the trend is toward conservatism. More than ever, designers and retailers are keen to keep turnover high,” said Le Monde de SHC owner Eric Young.

That focus on strongly selling pieces that fit into a wardrobe was key for many buyers who were looking to provide cautious customers with classic investment pieces.

Emmanuel de Bayser, co-owner of The Corner in Berlin, perhaps summed up the positioning best: “It is a time of focus and restraint, certainly not unbridled creativity and offerings…We cut almost all streetwear brands and focus on long-term partnerships, and are happy to grow with these brands.”

Here’s a look at what buyers are buzzing about. Responses have been edited.