Jacquemus was said to be entering a beauty deal with Spanish company Puig in 2021, according to a WWD report at the time. While those talks apparently never materialised, the designer never gave up on the idea. “We’re also thinking about diversifying into beauty. Jacquemus has everything it takes to be a great beauty brand; we have the universe, the art of living and the magic to do it,” he told Le Figaro in October 2024 on the back of the opening of the brand’s first store in New York on 18 October.
Jacquemus has been a case study in succeeding as an independent Parisian brand. Turnover was €270 million in 2023, up from approximately €200 million in 2022 and €100 million in 2021, as previously reported by Vogue Business. The brand is not immune to the wider luxury slowdown, though, and 2024 was more challenging, the designer signalled to Le Figaro. “Not to mention the fact that, with the Olympic Games, Avenue Montaigne suffered the full force of the decline in visitors this summer. In reality, we’re not doing badly as the smallest house on the avenue, with more accessible prices and therefore a lower average shopping basket,” he told the French newspaper.
In the same article, the designer said he is looking for a minority investor. “I value my independence, I want to pass the company on to my children, but I need to break the glass ceiling by finding the right partner who will remain a minority shareholder,” he said.
Simon Porte Jacquemus founded his womenswear brand in 2009 at only age 19 (he added menswear in 2018) and has defied the odds by growing while staying independent in an industry that gives an edge to conglomerates. The brand has been without a CEO since Bastien Daguzan, Jacquemus’s former business partner, departed the brand in December 2023. Recent rumours named ex-Celine executive Sarah Benady as heading to the house.
For his latest show held during Paris men’s week in January, he dipped into his archives from the last 15 years involving stripes, dots, red and a banana print. After opening a first permanent store on Paris’s Avenue Montaigne in 2022 and in New York and London in October and November 2024 respectively, the brand is slated to open in Los Angeles in April and Miami in 2026.
In March 2024, Jacquemus was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the highest French ministerial award for cultural achievement. When presenting him with his medal, Vogue’s Anna Wintour praised his entrepreneurial attitude and his knack for viral accessories like the Mini Chiquito bag, Luke Leitch wrote. She described his aesthetic as: “a dream life of cheerful, sexy self-portraiture wrapped up in a collection of useful Frenchness”.
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