Comptoir des Cotonniers goes for international growth

Former Benetton, former Levi Strauss

The French native had worked as sales manager for North Europe at Benetton for the past two years, but she has spent most of her career at Levi Strauss. She first started out as regional manager for the franchise stores in 1998 and became Levi Strauss’s retail network director in 2001, country manager for Levi’s and Dockers in 2008 and general manager a year later.

Nancy Pedot – appointed in November 2013 to lead Comptoir des Cotonniers and sister brand Princesse tam.tam – brought in Nathalie Schneider. Pedot was Elisabeth Cunin’s successor when she left for French group Camaïeu and she made it clear at her appointment that she would “initiate a new phase of international growth”.

The French prêt-à-porter ladies’ brand Comptoir des Cotonniers was founded in 1995 and currently has 375 stores, most of which in France (226), with the rest spread over Europe (96 stores, 8 in Belgium), Japan (45) and the United States (8).

Japanese parent company

Comptoir des Cotonniers belongs to Japanese Fast Retailing, mostly known from UNIQLO even though the company also has GU, Helmut Lang, J Brand and Theory.

Fast Retailing trails Inditex and H&M as the world’s largest clothing distributor, with an expected 9.2 billion euro turnover this fiscal year (a 15.7 % increase compared to last year). CEO Tadashi Yanai has never made it a secret that he wants the company to be the world’s largest by 2020.