Interview: Gilles Attaf, Molitor group (Smuggler/France Confection)<

Yves Saint Laurent once declared "the modes pass, the style is eternal".

Created in 1978, the last French costume designer Smuggler is one of the brands that have managed to impose in time a style, his style, the style made in France. All of his men's costumes are still designed today in the factory workshopsFrance Confection located in Limoges, the last to master on the national territory the manufacture of parts in Manche. If a strong capital link used to exist between Smuggler and France Confection, this is no longer the case.Under the effect of a crisis in the textile sector which has shaken up the clothing market and weakened the companies in the sector, the two companies found a new breath thanks to their resumption by the Molitor group in March 2018, thisCI wishing to expand its textile offer on European markets.

Since this recovery, Gilles Attaf has been general delegate of the textile branch of the Molitor group.A fervent defender of the manufactured in France, he wishes with other partners to teach the past crisis a new force to build around France making a new project, a "textile factory of the future".If innovation is always intimately linked to the traditional and unique know-how of society, the industry of the future is indeed at the very heart of the development strategies of the French textile sector.

Between computer science, robotics, and textile trade, this new initiative results from meetings and the desire for change between actors of sometimes very different sectors.Gilles Attaf tells us about what drives this transformation project, towards a possible revolution that is both complex and obvious, but above all inevitable to save and enhance the jobs of a part of the sector.

Could you define us what makes the Smuggler costumes, claimed as "elegant originality"?

This has been widely said and publicized, the clothing textile sector has been in decrease in the national market for several years, and like other brands we also have to face a drop in sales on the male costume segment.Yet if the drop in turnover is a real economic difficulty, the change in the market that takes place also is a source of new opportunities, with a new consumer appetite for quality products, until researchof more tailoring.It is in this movement that we call "Casual Chic" that our new products and costumes find their place today.

We left the traditional "working blue" for executives, which was the foundation of our identity at the start, and use our ability to offer clothes to wear for fun and not only to go to work!There is no longer this fracture between the "uniform" and the clothing of the weekend, the trend is a greater porosity between the different professional and personal universes.

Our proposal for an "elegant originality" is to be able to wear a costume jacket on chino pants, or to use different and mismatched costume pieces depending on the desires.The emblematic frock coat, a back -up -out piece in particular thanks to new television series, can for example be carried as easily with jeans as with the classic three -piece suit.The act of purchasing a piece of costume is more constrained by an activity, it is a real pleasure purchase that it is for everyday life, for its professional activity, or on special occasions, and this at all ages.

L’innovation produit & marketing doit-elle passer aussi par des collaborations plus spécifiques, comme avec la marque française 1083, ou avec l’intégration d’éléments plus technologiques ?

Integrating the product into denim into our development strategy allows us to locate us in a new reference universe, this new "casual chic".John is universal pants, it is the perfect link between the different universes that we have just mentioned.The meeting with Thomas Huiez, founder and leader of 1083, is now relatively old, and had already materialized a few years ago by a first denim jacket, which is still manufactured on the group's production tool.

1083 is a great reference in the universe of clothing made in France, it is an increasingly recognized brand of consumers.Our identities are very close, we work in the same spirit, for an exemplary traceability of the products, recognition of the quality of products and French manufacturing, for which our respective brands are also labeled France guaranteed.A development of common products, a co-branding is even in reflection, on a shed why not?

Offering traditional products with Made in France values is in no way opposed to innovation.On the contrary, we constantly adapt to the trends of our society.Also, since the results of the first studies raising the potential danger of the waves issued on a daily basis in our environment, we wanted to be able to act according to the precautionary principle, and at our level protect and protect our customers.We then imagined, developed and patented a removable anti-wave pocket, in collaboration with a Lyonnais weaver, based on a specific metal alloy capable of blocking 97% of the surrounding waves.The pocket is then inserted, according to the needs of the bearers, in the different pockets of the costume.

Why and how did you imagine the textile factory project of the future you want to build in Limoges?

Our production tool is very old and has been missing for several years of investment to be able to optimize and modernize it.However, it absolutely requires being completely transformed to be able to keep this unique know-how and our jobs in France, because we are the last thanks to France making knowing how to manufacture the Manche on the national territory.For this, beyond the transformation of the tool, it is its reconstruction to make it a "factory of the future" which is essential.And to do this, we have come closer to other players, sometimes other industrial sectors, which are also motivated to build the textile industry of tomorrow, like Microsoft for example.The teams of the computer giant have come to find us themselves because they have a real strategy and the desire to help industrial SMEs to mutate, and to integrate innovation thanks to their tools.

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The project is essential, even if we are still only at the stage of funding.The production tool cannot be viable under current market conditions, so we have no choice.The next building must be independent, eco-responsible, allowing us to achieve real energy savings-Ademe will also participate in the project to ensure this eco-efficiency.The processes will integrate both artificial intelligence, ERPs, and predictive maintenance systems.The search for productivity gains for the benefit of the revaluation of our jobs is at the heart of the strategy.

The realization of this certainly economic project but more broadly societal will finally authorize us to offer a new universe to our employees, more in tune with our time, and will be more able to make young employees adhere to a modern textile industry, providingjobs and new professions.A factory again synonymous with social elevator, the possibility of making a career, at the heart of the made in France.

The training and safeguarding of knowledge and know-how occupy a central place in the national support strategy for the Textile Sector Cabinet today.What are the priorities in this area?

There is no factory project for the future without necessary taking into account the training component, because it is a real problem in the sector.Microsoft wishes to create a training school for artificial intelligence technologies specifically dedicated to the fashion sector, a school that will be represented in several regions of France.

For our part, we will put in place with different partners a training in our professions, since it is essential to preserve and transmit our know-how, but also to make them evolve.At the heart of the training strategy is the central objective of the industry of the future, that is to say the upmarket to meet the needs of the major principals in the luxury sector.We have already started, in collaboration with a subcontractor, to work for one of these major orders, who validated the first productions and who would be ready to ensure part of the annual order book, which isextremely encouraging.Because to set up the project and have it financed, we need to prove that the order book fills up and that customers are ready to follow us.

One of the major problems of a factory like France Confection, as for many others, is to be able to diversify your order book and thus limit its risk.The search for quality orders is essential.The majority of the big names in French luxury seeks today to relocate all or part of their productions on the territory, and our upmarket is necessary to seduce them.In addition, the consumer wants to be able to ensure that manufacturing, if claimed Made in France, is actually carried out in France, and there is a real subject, central, essential, both complex and obvious, that we areable to treat and enhance with these orders.Everything must be linked, that the sector finally regains its dynamism.

You do ready-to-wear but also tailor-made clothing, do you think that product customization is the growth relay for today's fashion?

Indeed, this is a substantive trend because it is part of a current logic of lower consumption, in any case of more thoughtful consumption, which would finally reduce unnecessary stocks but also waste.Innovation makes it possible to better target demand to better meet it, to work in stretched flows ...

The combination of physical and web boutique, or "phygital" system, is a real full -fledged subject.The central problem of French brands is today to reform short circuits to respond to new demands for a whole part of the population, which wishes to access clothing made on demand, more responsible fashion and ecological products,sustainable, and aesthetic.The search for performance of manufacturing channels and logistics channels is essential to achieve this goal.

What has surprised you recently in the world of fashion and textiles?

I am positively stunned by the dynamism of young brands who arrive on the market, and which revives trades rather inclined to stay on their achievements, their fundamentals, with fairly heavy structures and extended circuits.These young entrepreneurs come to jostle us with their projects, even though they often do not come from the sector or from textile training at the start, proving to us that we could all be able to revive the sleeping fire of a French sector whichwas formerly flamboyant.

Young brands above all have an ability to work in an exceptional team, an ability to help each other and advance a subject that was believed to be lost, which was not the case before in the sector.Within the ecosystem of Made in France, figures like Guillaume Gibault, leader of the French Slip, or Thomas Huiez to name a few, prove every day that a new textile sector is possible, if we all worktogether in the same direction.

Interview by N. RIGHI - 07/01/20