On Tuesday, the brand announced plans to close 44 stores by December as part of a recovery plan proposed to reduce losses suffered by the company, which was already in financial difficulty when it joined the IDKIDS group in 2020.
“On 18 July, the management team presented staff representatives with a company recovery plan, which should reduce losses and allow the brand to be redeployed, " Catimini said in a press release. The plan foresees the closure of 44 stores in France, Belgium and Luxembourg, while five other stores would be converted into concessions as part of Jacadi.
The closures will be staggered, starting at the end of September.
The brand was experiencing difficulties with turnover in 2020 when it joined IDKIDS, a group that brings together an ecosystem of 18 brands of products and services for children aged 0 to 12.
Despite two recovery plans, requiring “time and resources that IDKIDS does not currently have”, and in the face of global economic demands, IDKIDS said it must now “focus its investments on short term developments and projects,” according to the statement.
Catamini will instead concentrate on a capsule range of “iconic products”, to be distributed across the group’s multi-brand networks (IDKIDS and idkids.fr stores), as well as wholesale.
The statement promises a “major mobility plan” working with the other brands in the group to limit the impact on Catimini’s 89 staff members affected by the closures. With 1,300 stores across 65 countries, the group, which counts 6,000 employees, says it can offer each Catimini employee “opportunities for intra-group mobility”.
It is not the first ready-to-wear brand in France hit by crisis over the past year: last September, Camaïeu went into liquidation, while in early 2023 Go Sport, Gap France and Kookaï were all placed in receivership.
