The poster announced an upcoming closure in certain windows, tired vendors, disappointed customers: in a heavy atmosphere, the NAF brand brand ready to use, in judicial administration, is waiting to be fixed to its destination on Thursday. “NAF NAF says goodbye”: in several Parisian stores, the clearest of the three small pigs that gave its name to the iconic female fashion brand of the 90 unfortunately greets its customers through some signs.
Due to Thursday, the court will have to decide on the partial recovery offers that have been presented for the brand in difficulty or even, if none is validated, resolve a liquidation. The climate is gloomy within the stores of the capital, where several employees denounce with successive AFP instructions that “do not listen” and “reproduce the same mistakes.”
In fact, the brand “A La Gran Look” experienced three successive judicial reactions, the last of which in May concerns its 600 employees in France. “Nothing changes, in the first recovery, it was necessary to close the stores and then relaunch the brand,” summarizes a seller. “Some [clientes] Do not recognize the brand. We have heard it for 3, 4 years, from the first acquisition. The brand has collapsed and continues to sink, “adds his colleague.
“Quality has fallen”
At the points of sale in the south of Paris, the bearers leave, the boxes accumulate up and the customers are rare in this atmosphere of decoupling. “During the last five years, we have chained the changes of the owners. Prices have increased, the quality has decreased,” said an employee.
The same nostalgia is reflected in customers. “I grew up with NAF NAF. Before, when we wanted a beautiful dress, we came here,” says Sabrina, 45. The forties lament fewer good finishes and “cheap” fabrics [bon marché, ndlr]. “It would be a shame if it closes because I don’t like buying on the Internet and today everything,” he sighs. In France, NAF NAF employs 588 employees, the court said in the judicial recovery decision in May.
The Beaumanoir (Caroll, Bonobo, Cache Cache, etc.) group offered to take care of the NAF NAF brand and 12 stores in France, “selected for its strategic location, allowing the group to continue and strengthen its territorial network in its current brands,” he told AFP. The offer also includes the resumption of 48 employees attached to these stores and almost 250 additional reclassification offers in their various brands, “completed the group that partially bought in June the women’s brand ready to use Jennyfer.
Cash flow difficulties
The CFDT said it was not favorable in a statement at the end of July to this proposal that provides “the resumption of a very limited number of stores and employees” and, therefore, considers that “it is more as a liquo offer.”
The offer thanks to the union is that of Ammoniss, owner of Pimkie, who would like to “take 30 stores while maintaining the NAF NAF brand, with the resumption of 146 CDI,” reveals the CFDT. However, the latter does not hide his concerns, the financial situation of the “fragile” candidate. Requested by AFP, Amoniss had not reacted immediately.
Faced with “cash difficulties”, Bobigny’s commercial court (Seine-Denis) had placed NAF. In June 2024, after a previous bankruptcy, Turkish buyer Migiboy Tekstil promised to save 90% of the works and keep a hundred clean stores. At that time, the company had offered more than 1.5 million euros to take care of the French brand.
In doing so, the Turkish company had saved 521 jobs from 586 and one hundred stores in France, and resumed subsidiaries in Spain, Italy and Belgium.
Source: BFM TV
