[In depth] Why French fashion retailers are falling one by one

The year has started remarkably badly for French fashion retail: familiar names like Camaïeu, Go Sport, Pimkie, Kookaï and Cop.Copine recently went bankrupt or are undergoing judicial reorganisation. What is going on?

No improvement in sight

Last autumn, French fashion brand Camaïeu was declared bankrupt after an unsuccessful relaunch: 511 stores and 2,600 jobs were lost in France – in Belgium, the brand had left earlier. Meanwhile, it looks very much as if the end of the fashion chain was just the harbinger for a long series of bankruptcies and restructurings in the French fashion sector: familiar and established names are going down one by one, with no improvement in sight.