DALLAS — Anne Fontaine, a Paris-based designer and retailer of women’s white cotton shirts, is courting the luxury market in the U.S. with a combination of French romance and American realism.
Since founding her signature business six years ago in France, Fontaine has built the company around one strong concept: the white shirt in hundreds of variations. She has been so dedicated to the idea that when Fontaine expanded the repertoire to include black shirts, it made the French newspapers.
Last year, the designer told WWD: “I’ve always loved white shirts. Sometimes I try to wear color, but I just can’t — it’s against my nature. Of course, I wear black.”
Recently, she even went so far as to introduce a cream color to the inventory.
Now, she has more than 30 eponymous boutiques worldwide, 400 wholesale accounts and total sales this year of $25 million, excluding the U.S. The designer believes America could be her top growth market and plans to open up to 20 boutiques in the U.S. over the next four years.
Fontaine’s theory centers on capturing a lucrative, twofold market: women who crave and collect luxurious cotton shirts for casual and dressy lifestyles, and item-crazy consumers who are drawn to the company’s more forward styles.
Fontaine now has four stores in the U.S., with two sites in New York — on Madison Avenue and in SoHo — and one each in Boston and Dallas. The company had a few wholesale accounts at stores such as Neiman Marcus, but those have been closed in order to focus solely on retail expansion.
Sales for the four stores this year will hit $3 million, according to Patrice Keitt, president of Anne Fontaine U.S.A. With the addition of the new doors next year, U.S. volume could hit $4 million to $5 million in 2001. She added that that the Boston and SoHo units, which have both been open for more than a year, are ahead by 27 percent and 12 percent, respectively.
“Women here tell us that it’s an unfilled niche, that they can’t find white shirt variations at this price,” said Keitt. Women who have found Fontaine’s designs abroad have greeted her U.S. expansion enthusiastically.
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International sales of the line, including the wholesale and retail channels, are planned at $25 million, excluding the U.S.
Next year, Fontaine plans to open stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Costa Mesa, Calif.
The Dallas store, located in designer-driven Highland Park Village shopping center, opened in November and is planning first-year sales of $600,000. The enthusiastic Fontaine visited the store for its opening, to meet customers and explain her shirt-based philosophy. Fontaine said she imagines a woman wearing each shirt as she designs it, and even names each style.
“American women, like French women, always need and want a variety of beautiful white shirts in their wardrobes,” said the designer. “White shirts are timeless. And the enthusiasm that greets us in every American city where we’ve opened a store proves that American women also view the white shirt as a chic and indispensable part of dressing.”
The Fontaine company is family-owned and the shirts are made in a French factory owned by her husband’s family.
Entering the 600-square-foot store here is much like sauntering into the sunroom of a French country estate. All the music that’s played over the sound system is French. There are nearly 100 styles of crisp white, black or the newly added cream shirts stacked or displayed on forms along pale white walls, in dark-stained antique pine cabinets and sometimes draped insouciantly over maize-colored rattan furniture.
The limestone floors hail from Burgundy, France, and antique mirrors, a signature in all Fontaine stores, are carefully culled from Paris flea markets.
Fontaine designs two 100-piece collections each year, for fall-winter and spring-summer, plus specialty capsule groups such as cocktail and full summer. Each full collection includes at least 15 to 20 enduring styles, such as a tuxedo blouse, which have remained popular since Fontaine opened her first store in France in 1994.
Early spring looks include pristine career-style shirts or camisoles, romantic and full-cut blouson tunics and more radical and fun-pleated or wildly crinkled shirts. Retail prices are from $80 to $310, with many averaging about $165. Fontaine uses a variety of fabrics, from Swiss cottons to lightweight silks.
The designer also has added a small beauty component to her business. She launched a collection of soaps, candles and home fragrance items in October that are eventually expected to generate 5 percent of company volume.