Paul & Joe keen to grow faster under new MD Marie-Emmanuelle Demoures

French ready-to-wear label Paul & Joe is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and is shaping up to kickstart a new growth phase. Paul & Joe has hired a new managing director, Marie-Emmanuelle Demoures, the former boss of Elise Chalmin, in order to step up the pace of its international expansion and broaden its audience. Demoures is working closely with Creative Director Sophie Haggiag, who founded Paul & Joe in 1995, starting out with a menswear line and launching women’s ready-to-wear the following year.

“It’s an interesting challenge. Paul & Joe is a label whose hallmark is its continuing commitment to high-quality products that are original without being too strong, and that never go out of style,” said Demoures, speaking to FashionNetwork.com at Pitti Uomo, where the label was exhibiting for the second consecutive time.

Paul & Joe’s presence at the Florentine show, the world’s leading menswear event, is part of the new strategy deployed by the family company still owned by Haggiag, helped by her son Adrien Albou, who took charge of style for the men’s collection in winter 2022. The goal was for the label “to be seen,” and Paul & Joe managed to make several contacts with buyers from around the world at Pitti Uomo.

A graduate of IFM, Demoures has been working for 15 years in the apparel industry, notably in the digital arena. She was at Monoprix, where she worked for the MonShowroom e-shop, then held senior positions at Balzac Paris and Elise Chalmin. As the latter’s managing director, she helped shift the brand towards a more upmarket positioning, and revamped its range. At Paul & Joe, Demoures will contribute her “in-depth knowledge of issues relating to market positioning, assortment, and omnichannel distribution,” the label said in a press release.

“We’re facing two great challenges. The first is to promote our export business by working internationally, hence our presence at Pitti Uomo. We want to capitalise on Europe, where we are well-established, notably in Benelux, and to expand in the USA, where we are already doing very well online. We have real potential,” said Demoures.

Paul & Joe is currently distributed via its e-shop and some 200 multibrand retailers, as well as its Paris store on rue des Saints-Pères and a corner at Le Bon Marché. Outside Europe, the label is present in Asia, where it has licensed its beauty line to Japanese specialist Albion. For the last 20 years, it has also been selling eyewear collections developed under license by Seaport ODLM.

“Our other main project is to bring the brand to life, highlighting its values of generosity and freshness, and its festive, lively spirit. These are important values nowadays,” said Demoures. She underlined the quality of Paul & Joe products, at least half of them made in France with French and Italian fabrics, the great attention paid to design and prints, the made-in-India embroidery, and the varied range of tailored and more casual items.

“Paul & Joe is positioned halfway between the premium and luxury segments. Customers will find good value for money at an average price of €450, and we’re attracting luxury buyers through our rather unique offering. Ours is a very sophisticated style with a touch of innocence. These are products that can’t be found elsewhere,” says Demoures.

To energise the brand, Paul & Joe, which Demoures said is growing (without disclosing revenue results), will stage various special events for its 30th anniversary, publishing more content. “So far, Paul & Joe’s presence on social media has been tentative. Its codes are still extremely current, but the communication format must be tweaked,” concluded Demoures.