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Nicola Mira
Published
Jan 17, 2019
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French investor Dan Arrouas buys stake in Roseanna as label plans further expansion

Translated by
Nicola Mira
Published
Jan 17, 2019

A new chapter is starting for Roseanna. The high-end womenswear label was founded in Paris in 2007 by Anne-Fleur Broudehoux and Roxane Thiery, and it has now found fresh backing to make further progress. Sources told FashionNetwork.com that a reorganisation in Roseanna’s ownership structure took place recently, after Roxane Thiery left the company last year. Notably, a major new player has entered the fray, French businessman Dan Arrouas, through his investment company Vog, a shareholder in Ba&sh, Make My Lemonade, Eleven Paris, Modetrotter and Livy


Spring 2019 pre-collection - Roseanna


In Roseanna’s new ownership structure, the label's equity is balanced out among Anne-Fleur Broudehoux, French sovereign fund BPIFrance - a shareholder since 2015 which has now injected fresh capital – and Dan Arrouas, plus a few long-standing private investors. The plan is to give new impetus to the label, which reportedly generates a revenue of about €3 million, via 130 multibrand clients and a monobrand store in rue Froissart, Paris. The declared objective is to grow the revenue figure fourfold in three years, and become a brand to be reckoned with in the contemporary premium segment. 

The creative nous of Anne-Fleur Broudehoux will be crucial, and she will be fully engaged on this, dropping all other operational functions. A new General Manager has in fact been appointed to lead Roseanna, Barbara Quaranta, who crossed paths with Dan Arrouas at Ba&sh, where she was in charge of retail until last autumn, when she left for Roseanna. Aline Meynard, the label’s CEO since 2016, has in the meantime resigned.

“What attracted us to Roseanna was the brand’s appeal, and the strength of its product range. Roseanna has a potential which is worth exploiting with an ambitious growth plan,” said Quaranta. “Our idea is to slot Roseanna neatly between affordable luxury labels, like Sandro or Ganni for example, and designer labels like Isabel Marant. In this segment, there is a clientèle worth pursuing, with products in a new, more affordable price bracket,” said Arrouas.

Work on the collections and their pricing has begun in earnest, and it will start to bear fruit from the Autumn/Winter 2019-20 season. A new, more affordable price bracket (€250 on average) will be added to the existing ones, targeting a new clientèle, while creative items with more of a luxury vibe will still feature in the range. “Until now, the positioning was a little too upmarket. With the new positioning, and capitalising on the label’s current assets - its distinctive style, its fashion best-sellers and also its lingerie and footwear, two interesting categories - we think Roseanna can carve out a remarkable niche for itself,” said Quaranta.


Spring 2019 pre-collection - Roseanna


In 2019, the label will start investing on several fronts: advertising, via a digital marketing partnership with the DLX agency and a greater involvement of Roseanna’s designer; a strengthening of the wholesale footprint in France and internationally; and the opening of several monobrand stores. “The goal is to showcase the brand selectively, not massively, in premium locations in Paris and outside the capital,” said Arrouas. To mark the new phase in the brand’s history, a second Roseanna store is expected to open at the end of the summer in Paris.

Also on the cards is a stronger presence in department stores, in France and abroad. From February, Roseanna will feature at Galeries Lafayette, and it will shortly upgrade its presence at Le Bon Marché to a better-exposed concession. The label also reached a significant milestone in the US, where it previously had a handful of retailers only, by landing in 10 Nordstrom branches at the very end of 2018. Roseanna could further boost its US presence via franchised stores, a plan that might take shape shortly, in collaboration with some of the label’s established distributors.

Another quick fix is the upgrade of the label’s website taking place in January. Broudehoux’s new partners estimate the site could eventually generate approximately 25% of Roseanna’s revenue.  “Our business model is a perfect mix, striking an ideal balance between wholesale and direct retail revenue,” said Arrouas. Besides hiring a new General Manager, he has started recruiting new managers for e-commerce, social media communication and operations, to flesh out the staff as the new expansion plan gets underway.

 

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