This article originally appeared on Vogue Business. To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here.
When the Spring 2024 Paris Fashion Week schedule rolls out next week, Ester Manas will be notably absent. The buzzy, size-inclusive brand isn’t showing this season, the designers tell Vogue Business, in order to focus on long-term product development and scaling its team — which show production can distract from.
Founders Ester Manas and Balthazar Delepierre recognize it’s an unusual moment to hit pause. Their AW23 collection — which debuted its bridal category — was well received; a buzzy collaboration with Danish megabrand Ganni followed in June. And, in May, Manas and Delepierre took home the Andam special prize, securing €100,000 to boost their business.
“When you say, ‘We won’t do a show this season’, it’s usually bad news,” says Delepierre, speaking to Vogue Business from the brand’s studio in early August. “And, right now, we don’t have an excuse because everyone knows we won a prize.”
The money actually prompted the founders to hit pause. Earlier this year, Manas and Delepierre were working on a show for September, alongside their work for the Andam prize, Delepierre says. When they took home the prize money in June, they decided to hit the brakes without the fear of losing cash flow from skipping a season. Manas says she felt the money could be better spent than on a blockbuster show. “We want to respect the prize. We won €100,000, it’s important to think about this and not just do a big show to say, ‘We won’.”
Ester Manas launched in 2019 and has historically been the most size-inclusive brand on the Paris Fashion Week schedule. Garments come in one size that fit bodies from a US size 2 to 18, using clever stretch technology and construction to complement all shapes. The brand is stocked at around 25 stores including Selfridges, Matchesfashion, Ssense, Farfetch and Galeries Lafayette and continues to scale season to season. The founders declined to share revenues.
In skipping SS24, the brand joins a growing cohort of emerging designers who have decided this year to scale back to one show as a way to reduce costs and explore alternative methods of promoting collections, including Chopova Lowena, Conner Ives, Peter Do and Knwls. As costs rise, buyer budgets fall and fashion weeks become saturated with shows, brands are seeing the benefit in investing in product development over marketing, for longer-term success.
Ester Manas won’t produce a new wholesale collection for SS24, but is in talks with certain stockists to produce small, exclusive collections. The idea is they won’t chase new accounts or create a full new swathe of products, Manas says.
“Each brand has its own path and its own reason [for showing or not showing],” says Serge Carreira, director of emerging brands initiative at the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, the governing body for the French fashion industry. “The idea with Ester Manas is not to pause, the idea is more to build up the next season and to take advantage of the Andam Award to accelerate, taking the time to accelerate properly.”
In place of the press attention they’d receive from a show, Manas and Delepierre are getting married next week, in what promises to be a brand moment in itself, with 30 guests dressed in Ester Manas looks with makeup and hair. “We don t feel that we re skipping a fashion show as we actually have a fashion show in two weeks,” Delepierre says with a smile. “I alone will wear three dresses from our collection,” Manas adds, “plus our friends and our moms. It’s going to be really cool.”
Developing new size-inclusive categories
In meetings with the Andam jury, Manas and Delepierre explained their vision for new categories including outerwear and trousers. Andam founder Nathalie Dufour says she supports the brand taking a season off to invest in product. “To do more than [the] iconic dresses, [the brand] needs time, more sourcing, more money and a different strategy.” The buyers around the table at Andam were keen for this development, she adds. “We prefer the prize money goes to [combat] real industry issues, like production and product development — rather than just a show.”
To produce and grade new products for all bodies, in the same way their dresses and separates fit, will take a lot of time and investment, as well as investment in new team members, the duo says. “Part of our collection is always one size fits all, which is quite a bold statement when it comes to outerwear,” says Delepierre. “It’s not really possible to do one size fits all with a jacket. So, we need to find a new sizing system.” Instead of reverting to the traditional sizing scale, however, this might mean developing two to three different sizes depending on the design, rather than just one size for all, Manas says.
The designers are also keen to launch a “second-skin” category of bodysuits and base layers, Delepierre says, and invest further in size-inclusive lingerie, which they currently produce with French company Chantelle. Expanding the brand’s knitwear offering is also on the cards, Manas adds, but again it will require time and money, as knitwear development is “really expensive”.
For all new categories, the duo is keen to manufacture in France or nearby Belgium, which causes further delays in finding suppliers, not to mention higher costs. “We could rush it, but we don t want to do that. So, it takes a lot of time and money.”
If they have money left over from product development, Manas is excited at the prospect of pushing the brand’s accessories. “Jewellery is really important for us. We worked with 3D printing before in the south of France. It was cool to develop some crazy shapes and prototypes. It was really fun.”
As the French summer holidays end, the SS24 pause is far from a break for Ester Manas, the duo stresses. Prior to Andam, the duo worked full time alone, Manas says. “We are working. We have new offices and we are now building a team around us. It takes so much time to do it in the best way possible.”
The duo plans to return to Paris Fashion Week in March for AW24, which is well timed to potentially debut outerwear pieces, says the Fédération’s Carreira. “In fashion, the rhythm is so fast that one season off is already quite a lot,” he says. “According to their projects and their strategy, one season will allow them really to have time to implement what they are willing to to achieve. I think that’s good timing.”
“Of course we are an emerging brand, but the ambition and the stakes are quite high,” says Delepierre. “With Andam, we were pushed to imagine the next step for the brand and to show our [vision] to a lot of CEOs,” Delepierre adds. “We really left Andam with the idea of how Ester Manas will look in five years, 10 years. We want to take time to do things right.”
Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.
