Word: bonpoint
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...aesthetic suited Charlotte Gainsbourg's parents, icons Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, in the late '70s when Bonpoint was still a mom-and-pop operation off the Boulevard St. Germain, with founder Cohen in the studio and her husband Bernard keeping the books. Over the years, the business grew, and the couple opened stores in various capitals. In 2003, 33 years after opening their first boutique, the Cohens sold 70% of the company to Edmond de Rothschild Capital Partners, an investment group specializing in growing small and medium-size companies for resale. At a recent press conference, Bonpoint executives noted...
...Bonpoint does not advertise, so the stores and their whimsical windows are the main way of communicating with customers. None have had more impact than the 12,000-sq.-ft. Left Bank flagship at 6 Rue de Tournon, which opened last April, says Eric de Montgolfier, a managing partner at Edmond de Rothschild. The store, which Bonpoint executives claim is the largest luxury children's shop in the world, occupies the ground floor of a 17th century hôtel particulier and winds around a large neat garden to a newer wing. Shoppers and their parents wander through parlors with fireplaces...
...Bonpoint is completely different," says Richard Alibert, president of the company. "We are focused only on children and on dressing them every day." Although making kids' clothes might seem to be a simple matter of adapting design and manufacturing techniques to smaller sizes, he and others say it's much trickier. To cover the 0-to-14-year-old market requires 25 sizes with drastically different designs depending on whether a baby is lying down or starting to sit up, or whether he or she is still in diapers. Most items must be washable, and they must be comfortable?...
...complications come into focus at the Bonpoint creative studio on Wednesdays, when French schoolchildren have the day off. Like all Paris fashion houses, Bonpoint has a roster of "house models" who are paid (in pains au chocolat and clothing vouchers) to do fittings. First there's a story, maybe a moment on someone's lap, and if ever there are tears or fussing, the fitting is called...
Alas, brand loyalty is short lived. Once Karl Lagerfeld has seduced a girl, Chanel can hope to keep her for life. At Bonpoint, customers grow up and move on, so every 10 years the company must attract new ones. That is where the Cohens excelled. "I always insisted that we have someone in the studio with a baby in her arms," says Marie-France. In 1993 she hired Domitille Brion as a studio designer. "My jeunesse," Marie-France says whenever she refers to Brion, who is now an independent consultant. Together, over 10 years they honed the key codes that...