French lingerie brand Simone Pérèle is on a “fairly aggressive growth plan” in the Australian market, with growing partnerships and new standalone stores on the horizon.
Speaking with Ragtrader, Australia CEO Damian Burke said Simone Pérèle has commenced its growth strategy into an omni-channel brand.
“So, we will continue to open bricks and mortar stores in the right location,” Burke said. “Those locations that have a mix of high premium Australian designer and international brands.
“Locations such as Military Road, Mosman, James Street in Brisbane; those sorts of locations, we will actively try and secure.
“We recently opened a Melbourne flagship in Church Street, Brighton; we're actively looking for another four or five sites up the east coast of Australia.
In addition to this, the lingerie brand is also planning to open up more stalls with Myer, as well as enhancing its portfolio with David Jones.
The brand currently operates 27 David Jones stalls, seven outlets, three standalone boutiques, and now ten Myer stalls. Its latest Myer stall was launched on Wednesday, September 21 in the Perth CBD store.
“We've had a really, really lovely partnership with Myer,” Burke said. “Not to take anything away from our David Jones partnership, but it certainly has added a new consumer to our portfolio.”
In Myer’s recently released FY22 report, the company acquired 593,000 new customers for its Myer One loyalty program. This is mainly in younger demographics, according to the report, indicating its trajectory towards the younger market.
As well as Simone’s stockist range between Myer and David Jones, the company also has around 100 wholesale boutiques across Australia and New Zealand. The company is planning to launch another one before Melbourne Cup in country Victoria, according to Burke.
Aside from the lingerie brand's brick and mortar strategy, Burke said that its eCommerce business also forms a “strong” part of Simone’s growth plans.
“We have rapidly grown that,” he said, speaking of Simone's eCommerce. “It was (in 2018-19) around four or five per cent of our business; it's currently sitting at about 15.
“We'll grow that to 25% in the next couple of years. So we're on a fairly aggressive growth plan.”
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Outside of France, Australia is the largest market for the Simone Pérèle brand. Burke said the company in Australia is growing off the pandemic, where its lounge and sleepwear range flew off the shelves.
“And that continues as we have expanded our offer to the consumer,” Burke revealed.
“So we used to sort of dabble in sleepwear and loungewear and really focus on lingerie. We now have a solid offer of sleep and lounge wear available to the consumer.
"That's continuing to perform well for us, because we've expanded the range."
Burke continued, saying Simone’s fashion “is on fire” at the moment.
“So we have really spent a lot of time ensuring that the desirability of the product is back and working for us,” he said. “And that's down to, you know, all of our laces are exclusive - so we're finding the most beautiful lace.
“We're playing with great colours at the moment. From a fashion shape perspective, there's a real demand out there for our products that are push up on half cups.
“So less about those full cup moulded pieces and more of the fashion [lace]. And the fashion lace pieces are working well for us.
"We expect that to continue into next year."
“And from a more youthful component, we launched, last May, ‘Simone’, which is the second component to the collection. Which is much more fashion-focused and a little more daring.
“Certainly more sheer than our mainline and younger in feel.”
In regard to growth, Burke said he is hoping the new Simone collection will grow to 10% of the total business globally.
“In Australia, we're about six, perhaps, at the moment,” he said “So we've got a little bit of growth to do there.
“But we find that we're now delivering. We're about to deliver our fourth collection of this range, and we find that each collection is getting stronger and stronger. And it's a really fun, colourful, a little younger, fashion story.”