A touch of French class for the masses

If anyone is adept at high-profile positioning and selling luxury fashion brands, it is the French, but at least one French company has made a virtue of going after a more modest market in China, and its efforts are paying handsome dividends.

And the rewards for Group Beaumanoir are coming not only in cash but also in accolades from its industry peers. The company, which specializes in affordable ready-to-wear clothing, won the Audacity Award in the Top French Firm Awards in 2013 for the development of its brand Cache-Cache in China. The French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China presents the awards each year.

Olivier Guibert, president of the chamber, says the decision was based on Beaumanoir's adaptation of its business model to fit local conditions, the financial risks taken and the decentralization and promotion of local management teams.

Worldwide, the company has developed six labels for different fashion markets: Cache-Cache, Patrice Breal, Scottage, Bonobo, Morgan and La city.

Roland Beaumanoir, president and founder of Group Beaumanoir, says China is a huge, unique market, and the company has needed to adjust to it, and in some cases go out on a limb in doing so.

Cache-Cache, which celebrates its 30th birthday next year, made its first overseas foray when it set up operations in Shanghai in 2005. Nine years later it has 900 stores in China, more than half of its 1,535 stores worldwide. For the past few years in China, its revenue has grown an average of more than 30 percent a year and its revenue was about 1.6 billion yuan last year, it says.

Beaumanoir says the name Cache-Cache was inspired when he saw a group of girls playing cache-cache, French for hide-and-seek, and was impressed by their young, vigorous spirit.

With the naming of the brand, he decided to offer fashionable and affordable ready-to-wear clothing, following trends that could be easily combined and accessorized to women aged from 18 to 30 worldwide.

Stephane Torck, CEO of Group Beaumanoir China, says: "When we opened in China in 2005, we took as our principle that we would do what we were doing in France and adapt our business model to the Chinese market of today and of tomorrow, and to adapt to change."

But the company soon found the cost of importing clothes from France prohibitive, and that Chinese physiques were a lot different to those of Europeans, so made many changes to its clothes, and finally decided to produce them locally.

"We also realized that although many international fashion shows are held in China and that some fashion principles are universal, because of the Asian influence, China's way of life and the way it has developed, it is not at the same stage of development as Europe in its fashion trends."

Themes that Cache-Cache aims to highlight in its clothing include enthusiasm, optimism and playfulness with colors. The company reckoned that Chinese women were more "feminine", or "girly", and set up a Chinese team to learn about Western elements and a French team aware of what was happening in Asia would produce designs combining Chinese and French styles.

In China, the company has about 4,000 store staff and 300 office staff. Its clothing is also sold online. It says that an Asia logistics center was set up in 2012 with 12,000 square meters of storage space, enough for 4 million items of clothing and allowing store stock to be replaced rapidly.

Its first stores in China tended to be near hypermarkets, such as Carrefour, but now they can be almost anywhere and in cities no matter what their size. More than half of its shops are run jointly with local retailers as franchises. The company hopes to have more than 1,000 shops in China by the end of this year.

"The number of shops is not really the goal," Torck says. "The real aim is to be able to promote Cache-Cache so it is accessible to any young woman anywhere in China and by any means, whether it is digital, through a franchise shop or any other channels."

He says the company now has two levels of competitors. They comprise Chinese ones that have been in the market for a long time and are becoming more international and international companies in China that becoming acquainted with the Chinese market.

Even though many companies in China fret about economic slowdown and rising material and labor costs, Torck says difficulties can also produce opportunities.

"The principle of our development is to gain market access, so we develop where the consumers are, are price accessible, and can be at any level of city in China, and in any place."

Cache-Cache grows and develops with its partners because the business model draws on the advantages of both sides, Torck says. That means Cache-Cache shares its retail management knowledge, its human relationships and tailored customer strategy, and partners have access to good local resources.

China's influence on the company will become stronger, and the most important thing is to be aware of how the market is developing, he says.

"What is important is to present your brand with its DNA, what the brand represents, to make it accessible. If you cannot fit in with the reality of the consumer you are not going to be able to build a strong business."

Chinese women are very different to what they used to be, he says. They go out more, probably party more, and with the trend of globalization they are "becoming sexier", he says, but product differentiation remains critical. "There's a lot of discussion about what 'the trend' is. Nobody knows what trends will surface in the future. The key thing is that you have to catch them and to turn the trend into business, something that is sustainable."

What Cache-Cache offers is clothing that suits both Chinese and other styles and is suitable for girls and young women for all kinds of occasions, he says.