Cocorico : making made-in-France accessible
As the brand makes its first appearance at Who’s Next, co-founder Arthur Charle reflects on a spectacular journey and tells us about his expectations for this first session.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a label more French than Cocorico. Born in 2017, the brand has thrived on no-nonsense essentials, knitted, assembled, accessorized and shipped locally. From siblings to business partners, founders Arthur, Coline and Tom Charle intend to solve what they consider the biggest taboo surrounding made-in-France fashion: its high price, often prohibitive for customers. Eight years and more than 700 000 online customers later, they chose Who’s Next to start their first wholesale adventure.
Cocorico is launching wholesale. Why now, and with what strategy?
Arthur Charle: Last year we became the biggest manufacturer of made-in-France clothing. This year we sold more than a million pieces. We’re now well established online so it feels like a right time to move into wholesale. It also responds to a demand from our customers: to be able to visit a store and try the pieces in person.
Why did you choose Who’s Next to start this adventure?
We’ve had a great first contact with the Who’s Next team through our agents. We were immediately seduced when they showed us what great potential we had. We thought we had more of an industrial image, but the team convinced us that there was a real demand from stores for made-in-France brands, and above all accessible ones. We are lucky to be both supported and very well received!
What are your ambitions for this first session?
We are starting with an ambitious goal: to open around a hundred stockists next year and to show that accessible made-in-France fashion is possible. We’re arriving with 700 000 active clients and the challenge of building a real ecosystem, so we are an interesting bet for retailers.
What have been the keys to your success?
When we launched Cocorico we believed not only in local, but also in accessibility. Price is the biggest barrier preventing made-in-France from thriving, so we decided to lower our margins and bet on volume. And it paid! Moreover, because we work on a just-in-time system with close factories, we’ve managed to eliminate unsold stock from the equation, which is one of the biggest economic issues for brands. Today we have 45 factories that allow us to fluctuate our orders every 15 days, for 9,99 euros made-in-France boxers. It doesn’t get a lot more competitive than that!
