PARIS — The Salon de la Lingerie (SIL) and Interfilière returned with a fury — and a new organizer eager to upend the existing quo — after going three years without their crucial January event.
In an effort to create synergies between them, WSN, which took over the management of SIL and Interfilière last year, co-hosted the event from January 21 to 23 in conjunction with the fashion and accessory show Who’s Next.
Last year, Matthieu Pinet, the creator of the edgier show-in-show Exposed, which debuted in 2016 and has grown to be a draw for buyers because to its rougher pitch, took over as managing director of SIL and Interfilière. High stakes were involved.
In terms of exhibitor and visitor happiness, commerce, and energy, it’s gone amazingly well—much better than we expected. “People have truly grasped what we are attempting to do… The industry needs reform, and it’s a promising indication for the future.
Over the course of three days, SIL and Interfilière welcomed 15,285 visitors, with over 61.5 percent of them coming from outside. In 2011, SIL and Interfilière attracted more than 29,000 visitors. It had been several years since the previous organizer Eurovet revealed visitor counts, which had considerably decreased during the preceding decade.
Re-entry made the visitors delighted. According to Yolanda Duran, owner of Alla Prima Lingerie in San Francisco, “SIL has been and will continue to be a significant event and gathering place for the industry.” We may share ideas, learn about the latest trends, and assess our standing in the market there. It was a thrill to reconnect with a sensory experience by meeting in person and seeing the collections in person.
She complimented the redesign of the program. The attractiveness of the show’s airiness and open layout, according to Duran, may have been a result of our urge as a society to grow once again after so much time spent hiding, he added.
Guido Campello, brand director at Cosabella and owner of Journelle, which is growing in European wholesale this year, said, “They’ve done a very excellent job.” There is a genuine communal push because Matthew Pinet has opened it up and is bringing people together.
Renaud Cambuzat, chief creative officer of Groupe Chantelle, remarked, “It’s considerably busier than we imagined.” “That’s fantastic news for the industry.”
The majority of French corset manufacturers are attempting to update their products and draw in new, younger customers. Stéphanie Bujard Pérèle, brand and product director for Simone Pérèle, said, “We have to ask ourselves the proper questions about how to display our collections, our offer, and our communication.
The French lingerie market is flourishing once again after many years of gloom. In the first eight months of 2022, French innerwear exports increased 6.24 percent year over year, reaching 320.9 million euros, according to information provided for the exhibition by the corsetry industry group Promincor. During the same time, shipments of sleepwear increased 32.4 percent to 91 million euros.
A resurgence in interest in more fashionable lingerie and sleepwear has fueled demand. According to exhibitors at Interfilière, French corsetry experts are renowned for their expertise and concentrate on high-end textiles, which are often created in France, which is also advantageous to the supply side. According to Pinet, there is a noticeable increase in the demand for French expertise and quality.
According to Julien Bracq, CEO of Calais Lacemaker Jean Bracq, “the lingerie part of our company has been expanding regularly over the last five or six years.” “Bigger companies are becoming more and more aware of the possibilities of premium goods.”
Paloma Casile, who just celebrated the 10th anniversary of her label and was showing designs with gold-plated and silver hardware, agreed that more and more buyers are searching for made-in-France items.
Raphael Camp, president of the sister exhibition Curve in the U.S., said that during the epidemic, “a lot of American businesses offered a lot more seductive items and loungewear.” “We believed the market to be mature… I’m hoping that the American market will gradually accept higher-end underwear.
From the beginning, the U.S. has been our main market, according to Casile, who also noted that many retail start-ups visited us during the exhibition. Numerous new multi-brand stores, particularly ones from France, she noted.
This matched comments made by a number of exhibitors who said that more compact multibrand boutiques continue to do well. The marketing and communications manager for Wacoal Europe, Sophie Knis, stated, “We’ve noticed a lot of new opportunities.” There seems to be a new generation of boutiques.
According to statistics from Kantar provided for the event, lingerie, and hosiery sales on the French domestic market increased 2.5% year over year to 1.53 billion euros in the first ten months of 2022.
Lingerie industry participants noted that despite the high demand, there have been difficulties. 2022 was really complicated from the standpoint of the supply chain, according to Cambuzat. There were several material shortages, but in the fourth quarter, everything normalized, and we entered 2023 with excellent supply levels and stable costs.
Exhibitors emphasized that since the majority of the high-end corsetry manufacturers that make up the core of SIL’s exhibitors already obtained their fabrics in or close to Europe, they had less of an influence on their supply chains than manufacturers who got their materials in Asia.
In order to avoid alienating customers and merchants, businesses have been attempting to stabilize the problem of price hikes. According to Bujard Pérèle of Simone Pérèle, “After an extraordinarily energetic first half everywhere in the globe, the second half was more challenging owing to inflation.” Customers are much more cautious.
Director of Lise Charmel Olivier Piquet said, “We have hardly raised our sales pricing. We can manage our pricing better since the majority of our sourcing is local. Since we haven’t raised our prices as much as many of our rivals have in all price ranges, our high-end items are considerably cheaper. According to Piquet, 2022 was a very successful year for the corporation throughout France, the rest of Europe, and the United States.
With additions like Lurex embroideries and leather encrustation, Groupe Chantelle’s primary brand Chantelle was elevating the complexity of its designs beyond the essentials for which it is best known. With graphic embroideries, athletic pieces, and designs using French lace from Sophie Hallette, high-end brand Chantelle X unveiled its third collection. The company unveiled Chantelle Easyfeel, the new name for its Scandinavian brand Femilet, as the latest step in its “megabrand” restaging.
For the last five years, we have been trying to reposition all of the brands, and this is the complete articulation of that, said Cambuzat.
The shapewear brand Wacoal began incorporating more intricate silhouettes, such as the Izumi line with Noyon lace and a guipure design.
In an effort to further up its environmental efforts, Simone Pérèle will introduce traceability labels on its goods in April. Bujard Pérèle said that although it is employing sustainable textiles wherever feasible in new designs, it would take longer to update permanent lines, which make up around 75% of sales, owing to the technical difficulties involved.
As the market swings away from athleisure, exhibitors reported a spike in demand for underwired bra styles, albeit triangle forms remained popular. An expanding selection from both established and up-and-coming lingerie businesses includes items that combine lingerie with fashion. These items were also proving to be popular.
Charlotte Watson, a designer for Chinese lingerie manufacturer Meihuang, an exhibitor at Interfilière, said that “people are coming back to s*xy.” “Bra wardrobes are now a thing, and they combine comfort and eroticism. Customers desire sensual items as well, although loungewear sales haven’t yet peaked.