Founder and President, Cacharel
Jean Bousquet, founder of Cacharel: "Creativity at an affordable price"
Transcript (15 segments)
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Interviewer0:07
Good evening, Jean Bousquet. Good evening. You founded Cacharel almost 60 years ago. You experienced great success with your printed fabrics in the 1960s and 1970s, and then the success faded a bit. Today you are trying to relaunch Cacharel ready-to-wear by opening two boutiques in Paris in a few months. What are you aiming for?
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Jean Bousquet0:26
We know, it's very simple. I think that ’68, actually more precisely ’60, was the launch of ready-to-wear, and it was a total revolution. Young people took over the market. There was only haute couture and ready-made clothing, and then young people launched themselves, created, brought things, and especially at very affordable prices.
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Interviewer0:50
Alas, since then there has been an increase, the exchange rate between the franc and the euro caused a very significant increase, and then this market split between haute couture and mass market, and ready-to-wear today has somewhat disappeared. So that's what you're aiming for today: to try to find a place between everyday consumer clothing and haute couture. Is that the place you're targeting today?
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Jean Bousquet1:21
Absolutely. You just have to look at the street today. I find that young people have few options to dress: either it's mass market, which is fine but it's mass market, and then it's no longer affordable in price. So we need to return to this creation for this clientele of young people between 20 and 30 years old, because I hear that the big ones are completely affordable.
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Interviewer1:49
So, more specifically, can you lower your prices? Because Cacharel is a beautiful brand, a brand seeking this calm sunshine. So prices will drop by about 30% through a reorganization of agreements with manufacturers who will be made by French people in Eastern Europe and Portugal, because you no longer manufacture in France at all. A few years ago you still had factories in France, and we had 1,300 employees? 40 years ago. But no, we can't anymore. But that doesn't seem like a problem to me.
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Jean Bousquet2:21
I think France must add value and not necessarily do basic manufacturing. I think that receiving immigrants to work in France is better than having them work in their own countries? They will work more comfortably at home, and everything will be in order and prices. Prices are affordable. It's no longer possible today for the subject. The reason why the French plan, unfortunately we are no longer, and only? Cacharel has endured through time.
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Interviewer2:50
Jean Bousquet, it's also thanks to your perfumes created under license with L'Oréal? They brought you money over time, starting with Anaïs Anaïs, the famous Anaïs Anaïs. What does perfume represent today in Cacharel's activity? It's very, very, very important. It is globally established and has followed? since creation since the 1980s? It has passed through six? to rise and establish itself in the world. We saw the quantities that have completely carried the brand. Let's go. Well, I had this interruption of two policies of 12 years. Yes, you were mayor of Nîmes for a huge period? And then we gave manufacturing licenses for children's, for men's, Bluff? But we have decided to completely take back the women's line to reposition it on the market, as they were entirely in their element. But I repeat my question: what do ready-to-wear on one side and perfume on the other represent today in your overall activity? How is it split?
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Jean Bousquet3:53
We must represent about 20% only of the? firewall? of the gold shifter? So today ready-to-wear is about 20% of Cacharel. And you want to? malt? and to what level the importation? in stock market? that it be half of Cacharel's activity in the coming years.
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Interviewer4:08
This is not the first time, Jean Bousquet, that you have tried to relaunch and return to the glory days of Cacharel. There have been attempts that did not work as you hoped in recent years. What makes you think this time it will work for Cacharel? What has changed?
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Jean Bousquet4:22
First, the market now – it's obvious – there is very high demand, a global wave to bring prices to creations that are accessible but entirely creative, that differentiate themselves from mass market. That's new, because I repeat, it has taken the world by storm. And then if you have this brand that is known worldwide, we have much less effort than many others to implement what we want to do.
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Interviewer4:53
But how are you going to make the difference? When you have a brand that is known, that remains very well known, but how then to make it stand out in a truly competitive landscape? Creation: to turn to young creators. That's also important. Today, creators are? paid? in big houses, and they arrive wanting to impose their line a bit, and in the meantime, if you want to mark a path that is perhaps not entirely a world? No. It's a bit what happened with these recent failures at Cacharel? The creation was not in phase with the image of the company. So will we find coherence, a youthfulness, a quality, and a surprise season after season, through the civil detail that makes a young woman want to dress simply but with that little detail that differentiates? And the fact of having boutiques under your colors and not only being present in department stores or multi-brand stores – what does that change?
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Jean Bousquet5:57
The store? The book in store? It's formidable for a global and quality presence. On the other hand, those who suffer a lot today are the multi-brand boutiques, because they are caught in crossfire, I believe, in particular now by mail-order sales, which are in great difficulty because the internet has completely changed the landscape. So there, thanks to the e-boutique? It's you, it's really you. It will be ours and we will not sell on the web, that's for sure.
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Interviewer6:25
Yes, why?
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Jean Bousquet6:27
To precisely give the facility first. I think that ready-to-wear on the web is much more difficult to buy than an accessory like shoes, bags, watches, the turnover, the podium. But on the other hand, I really like... So the only idea we have is indeed to communicate a lot through the web, but to sell in boutiques around the world. Under the slats? They know? They shouldn't have said? If he is on that? Cacharel does not change. Thank you, Jean Bousquet, founder of Cacharel, invited on the Les Echos interview.
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Interviewer6:55
It's me, plus.