PARIS — French brand Sœur is stepping into menswear with a capsule collection cleverly called Frère, a brother line to its main womenswear brand.
The 20-piece capsule will launch on Wednesday in 11 of its European stores and on the website worldwide, including the U.S. It will also open the doors to a Parisian pop-up dedicated to the line that will stay open through the holiday shopping season.
The new launch is an extension of the brand’s design philosophy, which has long borrowed from the boys for its women’s clothing, said founder and designer Domitille Brion.
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“Men’s clothing is a great source of inspiration for Sœur’s women’s clothing,” she said in an interview. “We have always been very inspired by men’s fabrics, by men’s shapes, by tailoring, by the construction of men’s clothing that we have transcribed in women’s fashion and in the brand. It’s part of the brand’s DNA.”
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“Without realizing it, I made a brand for women that looks a lot like men’s clothes. Very naturally, men asked us for clothes for them,” she said.
Brion said that the women’s brand has consistently had male shoppers picking up blazers and peacoats for their tailoring and high-quality materials. The new extension comes after the brand’s homewares capsule last year and develops a larger context for the rapidly growing company.
While the Frère men’s capsule is “perfectly integrated” into the collection so that female customers can buy it too, Brion is clear that it has been tailored to fit men. It was a new challenge for the designer, who looked to classic tailoring, like shirts from Charvet, to understand the precision of men’s cuts.
“I am very respectful of people who make men’s clothes. There is a lot of research and perfectionism in men’s clothing,” she said.
The focus is less on fashion items than on classic fits and high-quality fabrics for pieces intended to stay in a man’s wardrobe for more than one season. Textiles including Harris tweed, wool and thick poplin cottons were used in the line.
If the capsule is a success, it may become a permanent part of the brand, said managing director Freya Day.
The foray into menswear comes following investment from Style Capital, the Italian backers of Zimmermann, which took an 80 percent stake in the brand a year ago and fueled a wave of expansion. The brand opened two stores in London in January and September, with three additional boutiques planned for the British capital by the end of 2025. It also launched e-commerce sales in the U.S. in February.
Its biggest flagship yet, a 2,700-square-foot store near the Duomo in Milan, will open at the end of this month, bringing the number of its owned stores in Europe to 52. It also has five shops-in-shop through a distributor in South Korea.
In addition to its website, Sœur is available in 70 multibrand retailers including Clic in East Hampton and Tribeca, and Goop online in the U.S. It has quickly become the brand’s second largest market, Day said.
The success of the U.S. market has been “a surprise,” she said. “We didn’t actually push the market that much as we’re quite focused on the U.K., Spain and Europe outside of France.”
Sœur plans to continue to develop its wholesale and e-commerce as an entry point into new markets, with the goal of opening more owned stores.
“We’re trying to mix the best of three worlds,” Day said of the company’s omnichannel sales mix strategy. Currently about 40 percent of the brand’s sales are digital. “But we are more a [direct-to-consumer] brand in our essence, in our core.”
The French style of the sophisticated yet casual “elevated basics” is available at the price point of around 300 euros for jackets and 500 euros for coats. The lines are designed with eight patternmakers in the Parisian studio, and items made with 85 percent natural materials such as wool and cotton.
Sixty percent of the brand’s offerings are produced in Europe, much of that in Spain, and North Africa, with embroidery from India and silk products made in China. The design and production teams remain integrated, with Brion continuing to oversee production. “This is very important for us in our organization, where the strategy and the organization of the brand is very much around this strong designer DNA,” Day said.
Sales were up 30 percent year-over-year to the end of September, Day said. The brand was not hit by the overall retail downturn during the Paris Olympics, and the quick cold snap in September has further boosted sales of its mid-season pieces such as blazers and jackets.
Soeur has launched with small stores on side streets as a first entry into markets, with a focus on customer service. “We know how to make side street shops very profitable,” Day said.
The Frère campaign was shot by Scottish photographer Mark Kean, and the looks came about organically. A plaid scarf was draped on the waist, resembling a kilt or skirt shape, and the line also offers a shirt dress that can be adopted by either gender.
“It didn’t seem incongruous to us at all,” Brion said. The designer added that the creation of the Frère line was more geared toward timeless pieces than jumping on any trend. “I like the femininity they have in them. It’s very nice to be able to see the feminine in the man and the sensitivity in the man, and this is the common point with the Soeur brand.”