“We need rules.” At the headquarters of Saint-James in the Norman coastal city, some would like the management of the brand, which produces and exports the famous sailor shirt, more stability in the middle of the ongoing trading talks between the EU and the USA about tariffs.
Not far from Mont-Saint-Michel, textile workers in the studios of Saint-James (pronounced “Saint-Bung”) produce sweaters, caban jackets and sailor shirts for a brand with sales of around 80 million euros, 40 percent of them in export and a third of them to North America. Naturally, in this medium-sized company with 400 employees, 300 of them at the Normandy location, the announcements of the US government to the tariffs are very precise.
The cotton sailor shirt, which is offered in France for 95 euros, is “currently (in the USA, editor’s note) for $ 140. With 16.5 percent it would cost $ 155,” explains Luc Lesénécal, President of Saint-James, who has just returned from a trip to New York to open a pop-up store.
“This is a significant price increase, especially since there has been many price increases in the past two years due to the increased raw material prices for cotton, wage costs and energy prices …”, Lesénécal lists.
When exporting, “exchange rate fluctuations, raw material and energy price fluctuations are used to … but the changes in customs sets, which sometimes take place retrospectively, make it more difficult to plan,” emphasizes the president of the brand, founded in 1889.
On Monday, Emmanuel Macron was “confident” with regard to the trade talks between the EU and the USA, after Donald Trump announced the extension of the customs break for the EU until July 9. On Friday, the US President threatened to raise tariffs from 50 percent to imports from the 27 EU countries from June 1.
In these turbulent times, Manuela Horeau, export manager for knitting at Saint-James, speaks of the “question of timing” in a textile industry in which you work for the season six months.
All a “question of timing”
“If you pass the price increase completely or only partially, immediately or later? That has a significant impact. And what will the other brands do?” She asks herself.
Although Saint-James has been represented in 150 boutiques in the United States for over 20 years, Lesénécal is not “pessimistic”. He is convinced that the clothes of his brand embody the “French way of life”, with a special savoir faire that the Americans appreciate: inside.
In the large workshop, the textile workers work under the eyes of … Brad Pitt and George Clooney. A large black and white poster with the two American stars pisting on a sidecar in Saint-James looks down at them.
Many hard -working hands, mainly female, work on the production of the sailor sweater, the 18 manufacturing steps, 23 kilometers of wool thread and no less than fifteen days from knitting to completion.
Viviane Rête, head of the repair department, where the seamstresses pay attention to eliminating imperfections, emphasizes the manual aspect of production. “We work with our hands: the machines cannot do it, we only work with a knitting needle and our eyes.”
As proof of the historical connection between Saint-James and the United States, the star banner blows near the main entrance. A plaque reminds that the US military authorities built an advanced base on August 2, 1944 and that 4,410 US soldiers: rest in the American cemetery of the small Norman city.
This article previously appeared on fashionunited.fr and was used with the help of digital tools translated.
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