Guy Laroche

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Corporate logo of Guy Laroche SAS (2013)

Guy Laroche [ ɡi laʁɔʃ ], (* 1921 in La Rochelle , † February 17, 1989 in Paris ), was an internationally known French fashion designer .

The fashion company founded by Laroche in 1957 , which enjoyed a high reputation especially in the 1960s and 1970s and was economically very successful until the 1980s, still exists today with the Paris-based Guy Laroche SAS and has belonged to a Chinese textile trading group since 2004 . Under the name Guy Laroche , clothing and accessories for women and men as well as numerous licensed products such as glasses , perfume , china , writing implements, etc. are offered in the upper price segment.

Designer and company history

Model by Guy Laroche (ca.1970)

Guy Laroche

Laroche was born in 1921 as the son of a hotel owner in La Rochelle. In 1949 he moved to Paris, trained as a hat maker and worked as an assistant for the Parisian fashion company Jean Dessès . After returning from several years in the USA , Laroche opened his own fashion house for haute couture women's fashion in Paris in 1957 . Guy Laroche quickly made a name for himself in the upscale price segment with elegant, portable designs and practical combinations that testify to the high level of tailoring and represent simple, luxurious Parisian chic. Valentino Garavani , who initially worked for Jean Dessès, worked as a designer for Guy Laroche at the end of the 1950s, as did the Tunisian and later star designer Azzedine Alaïa . At the end of the 1950s, the press described Laroche as a member of "the triumvirate of the haute couture avant-garde " alongside Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent .

In 1961, Guy Laroche launched prêt-à-porter fashion for women and opened a boutique on the elegant Parisian fashion mile, Avenue Montaigne. One of the prominent customers was Françoise Sagan . A licensed sportswear collection was launched for the American market, initially offered by Bergdorf Goodman and discontinued after a few years. Laroche sold the perfume license in 1962 to the cosmetics manufacturer L'Oréal and used the proceeds to expand the fashion collections and acquire a textile factory. During this time, the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake worked for Guy Laroche. The ready-to- wear men's fashion followed in 1966. In the same year, the company's first perfume, Fidji , for women was launched. Since then, other perfumes by Guy Laroche have appeared, including Drakkar (1972; discontinued), Drakkar Noir (1982) and Horizon (1993; discontinued) for men. In the Middle East in particular, products with the name Guy Laroche enjoyed great popularity from the 1960s.

The Guy Laroche company was owned by a quarter of Laroche itself and Pierre Lafont, the company's managing director . At the end of the 1960s, Bernard Cornfeld took a stake in Guy Laroche. In 1971 the owner of the French lighter manufacturer BIC Group , Baron Marcel Bich , took over the remaining 50% of the Guy Laroche company for the equivalent of 5 million US dollars. From the mid-1970s, Laroche boutiques opened in international metropolises, followed by global expansion. In 1974 the second line Guy Laroche Diffusion for women was added to the Laroche portfolio. In 1976 the French fashion brand Gaston Jaunet was bought by Guy Laroche. In 1979 Baron Biche sold his Guy Laroche stake to his own company, whereby Guy Laroche was incorporated into the BIC Group. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Laroche Group's annual turnover was around 40 million euros. In addition, there was income from licensed products amounting to 80 million euros. The separate perfume division generated the same amount on its own at the time. During this time there were around 35 Guy Laroche boutiques worldwide, the majority of which were run as franchises . In 1982, the Guy Laroche North America subsidiary was founded in New York, which negotiated its own license agreements for the North American market. In the 1980s, Jacques Chirac and his wife Bernadette were prominent customers of Guy Laroche. In 1987 Laroche was accepted into the French Legion of Honor . Until the 1990s, Guy Laroche also produced under license for fashion companies such as Lolita Lempicka, Thierry Mugler , Christian Linares and Jean-Louis Scherrer.

Succession

With the death of the founder and from the beginning of the 1990s at the latest, the Laroche house fell into a crisis. From 1990 to 1995, Guy Laroche's sales fell by more than 40%. In 1995, losses equivalent to the equivalent of over 16 million euros were reported. The Gaston Jaunet division was liquidated in 1996. The direct successor as designer of Laroche was from 1989 on Angelo Tarlazzi; he was followed by Michel Klein in 1994. In 1995 Guy Laroche discontinued the Haute Couture division. Only when Alber Elbaz was appointed head designer in 1996 did Guy Laroche regain its former glory for a short time. As the successor to Elbaz from 1999, Ronald van der Kemp was unable to maintain its success and was replaced by a design team after just one season. In the 1990s there was a cheaper licensed second line for men called Guy de Guy Laroche (in Thailand as a licensed brand until today) and a denim line called Guy Laroche Jeans . A second line called Look was abandoned in 1993. As early as the early 1990s, the BIC Group announced that it wanted to sell the Guy Laroche company. In the mid-1990s there were around 170 Guy Laroche boutiques and sales areas around the world, 20 of them in Europe and three in Germany (all but the headquarters in Paris have now been closed). In 1998, Guy Laroche, after Yves Saint Laurent, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Karl Lagerfeld, entered into a collection cooperation in the lower price segment with the mail order company La Redoute .

In 2000, Mei Xeao Zhou, previously employed by Thierry Mugler, was hired to design women's fashion. The annual turnover at that time was only 11 million euros, with a negative operating result of 3.5 million euros. In the previous year, a loss equivalent to over 6 million euros had been reported. At the end of 2001 the Guy Laroche house was sold to Rech International , owner of the French fashion brand Georges Rech and since 2000 owned by Geneva-based Léman Capital . In 2002 Laetitia Hecht became chief designer at Guy Laroche. In 2004, Guy Laroche SAS was bought by Rech International for approx. 14 million euros to the Chinese textile trading group YGM Trading Ltd. sold, who at the time was a licensee of the Georges Rech brand in Asia and to which the British fashion brand Aquascutum has belonged since 2012 . YGM installed the well-known French fashion designer Hervé L Leroux (Hervé Leger) in 2004, who was replaced by Damian Lee after two years.

In 2005, the Guy Laroche company provided actress Hilary Swank with an evening gown at the Oscars, attracting international attention. In 2006, a Laroche boutique was opened in New York City, albeit in an unappealing neighborhood, and closed after a few years. At the end of the 2000s, the company had issued around 80 licenses, including for porcelain, glasses, accessories and perfume. The annual turnover, consisting mainly of the license business, amounted to around 300 million euros at the end of the 2000s, half of which was achieved in Asia (mainly China and Japan).

The Guy Laroche brand today

In 2007, the Franco - Swede Marcel Marongiu became chief designer at Guy Laroche. Hendrik Penndorf has been CEO since January 2007, and his family ran the Hamburg fashion company 'Penndorf' until 2003 . The flagship store of the company Guy Laroche, and currently the only boutique, located in Paris 35, rue François 1er, opposite the headquarters of Balmain . In 2012, a license for the production and sale of women's and men's fashion for the second lines Guy Laroche Silver and Guy Laroche Casual as well as leather goods was granted to the Italian Ittierre SpA , which was put on hold when Ittierre went bankrupt at the end of 2013. The main line for women will continue to be controlled from Paris and will be shown on the catwalk during the Paris Fashion Weeks. The license for the main line men's fashion has been with the Hösbach company Kastell GmbH & Co. KG since 1982 . For the Thai market, licenses were issued in 1984 to Thanulux Plc (men's fashion) and OCC Plc (women's fashion), which operate their own Guy Laroche stores. At the beginning of 2015, Guy Laroche appointed the American Adam Andrascik, a former Gucci designer and owner of his own women's fashion brand since 2010, to succeed Marongiu and thus Creative Director of Guy Laroche. Andrascik was replaced in September 2017 by the French Richard René, previously a designer for Hermès , Jean Paul Gaultier and his own fashion brand (2004-2010) and Vilebrequin.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Extravaganz macht Mode , zeit.de, February 7, 1957
  2. ↑ DIED: Guy Laroche , spiegel.de, February 20, 1989
  3. ↑ Fashion designer Valentino withdraws , focus.de, September 4, 2007
  4. ↑ The King of the Lionesses , welt.de, December 28, 2011
  5. ↑ Seen with young eyes , zeit.de, February 27, 1958
  6. ↑ Check written , spiegel.de, September 22, 1965
  7. ↑ Issey Miyake: Schnippelzüge am running meter , spiegel.de, May 31, 2001
  8. ↑ HORIZON de Guy Laroche , youtube.com, accessed: March 29, 2015
  9. ↑ Laroche's Goal: Evolve Original Style , Palm Beach Daily News via Google News, May 17, 1983
  10. ↑ A Cholet, l'effeuillage de Gaston Jaunet: Depuis dix ans, la marque de vêtements périclite. 444 salariées vont être licenciées , lesechos.fr, 25 July 1996
  11. ↑ Everything hypersoft and so easy , zeit.de, October 24, 1997
  12. ↑ Rech International takes over Guy Laroche ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , textilwirtschaft.de, December 14, 2001  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.textilwirtschaft.de
  13. ↑ Le groupe Bic cède la maison Guy Laroche à Rech International , lesechos.fr, December 14, 2001
  14. ^ Leman Capital buys Guy Laroche , efinancialnews.com, December 14, 2001
  15. ↑ Rech Intl buys Guy Laroche  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Fashion Wire Daily via spectroscopyonline.com, December 17, 2001@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.spectroscopyonline.com  
  16. ↑ Léman Capital: Acquisition in Germany  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , derstandard.at, May 15, 2002@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / derstandard.at  
  17. ↑ # 93; = 183683 focus ( memento of the original dated November 26, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , textilwirtschaft.de, July 22, 2004  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.textilwirtschaft.de
  18. ↑ Guy Laroche Opens on West 57th: Would You Like Fries With That? , theshophound.typepad.com, August 18, 2006
  19. ↑ Are This Store's Days Already Numbered? , theshophound.typepad.com, November 17, 2007
  20. ↑ Meet the American Designer Who's Taking the Helm at Guy Laroche , style.com, January 23, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Laroche, Guy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French fashion designer
DATE OF BIRTH 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH La Rochelle
DATE OF DEATH February 17, 1989
Place of death Paris