REPORT
things better for our employees, without losing quality.”
By now, the numbers are back to the level of the beginning of 2020, before the pandemic started. Rudolf says: “We are happy that we survived the past two years and managed to keep all our employees during this period because, as for the whole manufacturing industry, the biggest challenge is always to find, train and keep the required number of qualified employees. That is all settled, so we look forward to keep producing Mayser’s future collections of high quality hats in Europe.”
More information
www.mayserhats.com
Corinne Suire
Fléchet Loudun, France
In the November 2018 issue, The Hat Magazine reported on the relaunch of the historic French hat brand Fléchet by a wholesale company in the town of Vannes. The adventure of restarting Fléchet as a label completely produced in France did not last long, as the brand changed hands again in 2019.
18 | the hat magazine #93
The new owner, Complement Europe, decided to approach things seriously right from the start and hired Mark Saunders, former sales and marketing director of the historic beret manufacturer Laulhère, as general director to bring Fléchet back to its former glory.
Complement Europe has a completely different background to Fléchet, as CEO Corinne Suire explains: “Complement was founded in 1988 and has established itself in the past decades as a major player in the textile accessories market with headwear, gloves, umbrellas and scarves. We specialise in importing from Asia and sell mainly to big department stores and larger shops.” In 2004 Corinne moved to China to set up
a local quality control office for Complement. After four years the company decided to take the next step and start its own sewing factory in China. “We took over an existing garment
S/S 2022 collection
factory with 200 employees,” says Corinne. “I expected that it would take us about six months to turn it into a cap factory, but after three months we were producing the numbers we needed. It all worked out very well, but over the years our costs started to rise. As a French factory in China, we usually had to pay higher fees than Chinese companies during the whole production process, which is unfortunately just the way things work. The wages of the employees were rising every year quickly as well; after nine years they had more than doubled. In 2016 we reached the point where we started to lose money, so we decided to close the factory.” When Corinne moved back to France
after the factory closed, she brought a love for producing back home with her. “Living in China was very interesting and constructive. The Chinese mind is so far away from the Western one. The Chinese are almost completely focused on short- term planning, and the most important thing is the factory, rather than the customers. Since I have been back in
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