The women’s ready-to-wear brand Don’t Call Me Jennyfer, which employs 1,112 people, requested its suspension of payments on Wednesday, trapped by the “sudden increase in costs combined with galloping inflation” with consequences in purchasing power, according to a statement.
Made before the Bobigny Commercial Court (Seine-Saint-Denis), this request “is a company protection measure that will allow us, during the six-month observation period, to work on all possible options to preserve the activity of the company”. and jobs,” its director general, Emmanuel Locati, told AFP.
Founded in 1984, Don’t Call Me Jennyfer has 220 stores in France and 80 internationally, and its site and app attract 10 million unique visitors a year, according to the company.
1112 works
Questioned by AFP, the company declared having reached 301 million euros in turnover in 2022 but did not want to communicate its losses.
“You should not confuse judicial administration and liquidation”, emphasizes Emmanuel Locati. The latter says that he is “confident” as the brand has “many assets to recover from”.
“We are leaders today in France in young people from 10 to 19 years old with just over 10% market share,” he told AFP.
Don’t Call Me Jennyfer (previously Jennyfer until May 2019) “had already started its transformation in 2018”, modernizing its store base and revamping its identity, clearly targeting young shoppers through social media.
“We’ve developed significant collaborations with Gen Z thought leaders like Lena Situations, Eva Queen, McFly and Carlito” and the brand boasts “a very, very strong community” with, for example, 1.3 million subscribers on Instagram , Emmanuel figure. location
The brand had been absorbed in 2018 by a consortium of investors led by Sébastien Bismuth (former managing director of Undiz), as this acquisition had not been carried out within the framework of a receivership or a collective proceeding, Don’t Call Yo Jennyfer told AFP.
black sequence
Consequences of Covid-19 and the closure of non-essential businesses, competition from online sales, inflation, rising costs of raw materials, energy and wages, the boom in the second-hand market: the ready-to-wear and footwear activity For the last three years, it has been facing a succession of problems that are weakening the sector and companies, which are sometimes already fragile.
They are also struggling to repay State Guaranteed Loans (PGE) made during the Covid-19 crisis.
For clothing, the end of the pandemic did not mean a return to the situation prior to Covid-19: sales in 2022 remained almost 10% below their 2019 level, explained Gildas Minvielle, director of the Institut’s economic observatory. Français de la Mode (IFM).
The brutal liquidation of Camaïeu in September 2022, which entailed the dismissal of 2,100 employees, shook the fashion world and marked the beginning of a succession of liquidations (such as that of San Marina) and judicial bankruptcies, frozen by aid to companies. companies in times of Covid.
Kookaï, Burton of London, Gap France, André, Kaporal… These brands that have known their glory hours highlight the “economic difficulties that the ready-to-wear sector is going through in Europe, which the Covid-19 crisis has accentuated”.
10,000 jobs lost
Other brands are choosing to downsize, cut staff and close stores, such as Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princesse Tam-Tam (Fast Retailing group) or Pimkie.
“Since the beginning of the year, 10,000 jobs have disappeared,” estimated Yann Rivoallan, president of the Federation of women’s ready-to-wear, in June, on the sidelines of the parade of the Chinese “fast fashion” giant SheIn, which he accuses of ” destroy French jobs”.
Source: BFM TV
