PARIS – Alexis Mabille is seeking new investors as it works to raise fresh funds and renegotiate its debt, with the aim of relaunching its ready-to-wear and accessories lines within the next three years.
The French haute couture brand’s operating company Impasse 13 has gone into receivership to enable the financial restructuring. It filed for court protection in the southern city of Lyon in July, but the running of the business has not been impacted as it holds discussions with potential partners.
Martin Mabille, chairman and chief executive officer of Alexis Mabille, said the label designed by his brother was heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. With its principal shareholders deadlocked over key strategy decisions, it has not been able to raise additional capital since 2015.
“Today, we need funds to finance our strategy and our projects,” Mabille told WWD in an exclusive interview. “It’s a technical procedure which aims to give us the means and the legal framework to restructure our capital and restructure the debts that were contracted during COVID-19.”
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The house plans to stage a runway show during Paris Couture Week in January and is set to celebrate its 20th anniversary later next year.
“It’s business as usual, with the expectation of being able to enjoy much greater freedom in 2025, once the fundraising has been completed and the restructuring has been finalized, since this time we will be able truly to move forward with a new pool of shareholders who support the brand,” he added.
“The company is recruiting. We’re working with our clients and our partners, we’re developing new projects,” Mabille added.
His family currently holds a third of shares. He declined to name the other shareholders, but explained that a third was owned by a French private equity fund that was formerly financed by the country’s ISF wealth tax, which was scrapped in 2018. The remaining third is held by a large Chinese rtw group and a family office in Singapore.
Alexis Mabille announced in 2015 it had signed a partnership with Chinese fast-fashion retailer Peacebird to establish a network of stores in Greater China. Under the terms of the deal, Ningbo Peacebird Fashion Co. Ltd. acquired a minority stake in the Paris-based brand for an undisclosed sum.
In recent years, the Chinese shareholder was not aligned on strategy, even as the French fund saw its source of capital dry up, Mabille reported.
“The governance of the company is virtually blocked,” he said. “The objective is to completely renew the non-family shareholding.”
The brand’s immediate priority is to invest in customer relationship management by infusing fresh funds into its couture salon above its store in the historic Galerie Vivienne in Paris, and bolstering its digital interactions with clients; padding out its atelier, and recruiting additional customer relations associates.
In 2018, Alexis Mabille repositioned its main ready-to-wear collection to focus on the sophisticated tuxedos and glamorous evening gowns that have won the label fans including Alexandra Daddario, Lady Gaga and Dita Von Teese. Since 2020, it has designed exclusive lines for a reduced number of key retail partners such as Harrods in London.
“I think we did the right thing since 2018 in focusing on haute couture to continue to develop the brand so that, in two or three years’ time, we can relaunch a luxury ready-to-wear and accessories collection,” Mabille said.
Couture orders are back to pre-pandemic levels and the company returned to profitability in 2023, after seeing revenues plummet by 75 percent in 2020 and 2021 amid a dearth of major social events, he said.
The brand, which employs around 20 permanent staff and has not implemented any layoffs, hopes to announce the arrival of new shareholders early next year.
“We are looking at all interested parties. The solutions include support from international groups who are active in the luxury space, or family offices that are entrepreneurs with an appetite for luxury and high-end craftsmanship,” he said.
“They understand that it’s a very good time to invest in a brand that has a beautiful history, that is coming out of a difficult period not entirely unscathed and needs to restructure financially, but whose underlying business is good,” he added.
Mabille is not the only couture brand affected by the pandemic. Earlier this year, Los Angeles-based e-commerce player Revolve Group said it had bought a majority stake in Alexandre Vauthier after the company entered receivership in February.
