PARIS — The Kooples is forging ahead with its U.S. expansion.
The French contemporary brand is slated to open its fifth American boutique on SoHo’s Mercer Street on March 22, its second store in New York. Its first stand-alone Stateside opened last July in Los Angeles. That store was followed by boutiques in San Francisco, Santa Monica and New York City’s Meatpacking District.
The brand launched in the U.S. via concessions in Bloomingdale’s stores a little more than two years ago.
“We will finish this fiscal year, which ends Aug. 31, with sales of $28 million in the U.S. and Canada,” said chief executive officer Nicolas Dreyfus.
“In the first half, we saw same-store sales growth in the U.S. of 9 percent, better than our objectives,” he said.“Meatpacking, in the first half, was in our top-three stores worldwide.”
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The brand is also performing better than expected in wholesale in the U.S., where it is now stocked at Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom as well as specialty stores.
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“Wholesale will account for 20 percent of U.S. sales this year,” Dreyfus said. “Nordstrom, with the summer collection, to date has already sold 50 percent of stock, which is very rare.”
All this is without advertising, which has played a key role in the company’s success in Europe with its branding focused on selling a concept aimed at couples. “We did a fly posting campaign in New York and we work with bloggers, but we are thinking about how to do an original ad campaign in the U.S.,” he explained. “The success of The Kooples is also its communication. The day we attribute a communications budget in the U.S., I believe the sales growth will follow.”
Over the next five years, Dreyfus is targeting a total of 20 stand-alone stores and 10 outlets in the U.S. The first two of the latter are set to open before September, which will also see the launch of e-commerce in the U.S. and Canada. The brand’s first three stores in Canada, where it is stocked at Holt Renfrew and Hudson’s Bay, are scheduled to open in late 2015 or early 2016.
In the same time frame, a third store in the Los Angeles area, as well as boutiques in Miami, Chicago and Hawaii, should open their doors.
Dreyfus is anticipating total sales of 220 million euros, or $243.1 million at current exchange, this fiscal year, which represents 20 percent growth year-on-year in reported terms and a same-store sales increase of 9 percent. He predicts earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 38 million euros, or $42 million, for the period, and this will help fund the firm’s expansion, he said.
For the 2019/2020 fiscal year, Dreyfus is targeting total revenues of 550 million euros, or $607.8 million, of which 30 percent should stem from North America.
But while the U.S. is The Kooples’ priority right now, the seven-year-old brand is also growing in other markets.
It recently moved its headquarters from Place Vendôme here to an expansive private mansion just off the prestigious Parc Monceau, where a giant atrium space filled with modern art and imposing taxidermy creations serves as the brand’s showroom for the eight collections it now produces each year.
A first international boutique for casual line The Kooples Sport, launched in 2012 and now representing 25 percent of company sales, opens this week in Berlin. Canary Wharf in London will get its own boutique in two months’ time. Four new French stores are also set to open shortly, and the brand is expanding its existing stores on London’s Carnaby Street and in the Marais district of Paris.
The Kooples has 150 wholly owned stores in Europe. It has a total of 360 sales points worldwide.
Its first store in the Middle East, in the Dubai Mall, opened last October and is performing well, Dreyfus said. Next month, stores are set for Marina Mall, also in Dubai, Yas Mall in Abu Dhabi as well as boutiques in Doha, Qatar, and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Asia is also another expansion zone, but mainly for wholesale, with which the brand is present in South Korea, Singapore and Thailand. It is looking at opening its first Asian store in Hong Kong, potentially next year.