Should we expect a creative change at Chloé? Internal company sources deny it, but the disappointing sales trend, as well as the recent arrival of the new CEO Riccardo Bellini, suggest changes. In short, Chloé‘s finances worsen, and style wobbles.
Poor Natacha
Creative director Natacha Ramsay-Levi may be on the grill. Turnover condemns it, as we said. Although Richemont never publishes the results of individual brands, the French edition of Fashion Network revealed that French company Chloé Soc (which covers only part of the brand’s activities), at the end of March 2019, recorded revenues of 91 million euros: they were 215 the previous year. Although this decrease could be related, at least in part, to a different accounting between the two years, the newspaper underlines how the company had already recorded in 2018 a drop in turnover by 38%, on an annual basis. In 2017, Luca Solca, a former analyst at BNP Paribas, now at Bernstein, estimated the brand’s annual sales for around 520 million euros.
Chloé‘s finances are getting worse
The meltdown would have occurred right after the arrival of Natacha Ramsay-Levi (April 2017). The decline is of unusual proportions for the industry average. Adding new products such as jewellery and footwear, wanted by the former designer at Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton, was not enough. Some analysts attributed Chloé’s poor results to offering products that are too expensive in a price range where the consumer finds many other offers. Others believe that Natacha Ramsay-Levi is too eager to get results: the brand has lost its identity without winning new consumers. In particular, the bags with the C logo did not attract the attention of young people.
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