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If some of fashion’s most-treasured French brands of the moment are meant to be industry secrets, they aren’t particularly well-kept. Agnès B.’s signature snap cardigan, for one, has been around since 1979—almost as long as the brand itself. (There was even a book published to commemorate its 40th birthday.) Charvet’s slippers are sold online on Net-a-Porter. And despite doing pretty much nothing different product- or marketing-wise (Agnès B. doesn’t advertise, and Charvet barely has a social media presence), these brands are being rediscovered by new shoppers, bringing even more interest to their long-standing core products.
This is a scenario the woman behind the cardigan has seen play out time and time again. “It’s never stopped,” Agnès B. herself tells Vogue. “My customers and their children love to buy their first suit when they go to university, and some girls wear their mothers’ Agnès B. clothes.” As far as the label’s enduring appeal, it’s quite simple, the designer argues: “It’s child’s clothes for a grown-up or grown-up clothes for a child.”
Emilia Petrarca, the journalist behind the “Shop Rat” newsletter on Substack, has been an Agnès B. snap cardigan evangelist for some time now, in the same way Agnès B. describes. “We grew up with our parents wearing the brand—or I did, at least,” she says. “My mom shopped at the SoHo store in the ’80s and ’90s. She had the snap cardigan in her closet, that I definitely stole when I got older.”
Petrarca sees its renewed popularity not just as part of this generation growing up and spending their own money, but also amid a widespread increasing interest in vintage. “Part of why I love them is that they get better with age,” she says of the knits. “The more you wash them, the softer they get. They really stand the test of time.”
Chloe Baffert, the head of merchandising at Poshmark, confirms this, noting that interest in Agnès B. cardigans on the secondhand platform peaked a few years ago, largely driven by Gen Z. (Searches for the brand on Poshmark were up 34% year over year in December 2024.)
“Gen Z are discovering French contemporary brands for the first time. They’re attracted to timeless pieces that really fit their values of conscious consumerism,” Baffert argues. “Then, on the flip side, there’s really a nostalgia component: Growing up in the era of Repetto ballet flats and bateau neck tees, millennials continue to yearn to obtain a style as effortless as Sofia Coppola’s.” These brands are especially appealing on resale, she adds, because shoppers can also find discontinued, limited-edition, or long-sold-out styles.
Petrarca characterizes the snap cardigan as “an affordable piece that also symbolizes something. It symbolizes a certain kind of in-the-know…. It’s very French in that it’s an effortlessly cool garment. It’s a sweatshirt, but there are pearl buttons, so that makes it elevated. The allure of the French-girl look is that they just throw something on without thinking and their hair is in a messy bun, but they somehow look so chic.”
This phenomenon, however, is happening at higher price points too. Jalil Johnson, stylist and author of the “Consider Yourself Cultured” newsletter, had been amassing a small collection of Charvet for years before he actually got to visit the famous store in Paris. He was first introduced to the luxury brand, which was founded in the 1830s, via a deleted scene from The September Issue where André Leon Talley goes to the shop on Place Vendôme to get shirts custom-made, and was finally influenced to purchase Charvet’s slippers through Washington Post fashion critic and fellow newsletter author Rachel Tashjian. (He was working at Saks Fifth Avenue at the time and was able to use his employee discount.) “I still have them—red suede,” he says.
Most of Johnson’s acquisitions came via the secondhand market: a shirt from a thrift store and a scarf from The RealReal. On the occasion of his first-ever trip to Paris last September, he knew Charvet was a requisite stop. “I even made it a point to book an Airbnb that was just two minutes away so that I could be very close,” he says. Publicist Gabrielle Katz connected him to her sales associate, who’s also model Paloma Elsesser’s go-to. “I ran into Paloma and went shopping with her, which was actually really fun,” Johnson says.
Le Tanneur is another French brand dating back to the 19th century (it was founded in 1898) that has found a new audience online, especially on TikTok. Poshmark saw a whopping 483% increase in searches for the brand year over year in December, which Baffert attributes to the resurgence of ’90s-inspired minimal shoulder bags in the wake of the quiet luxury trend. “If you know a French contemporary brand that isn’t Polène and isn’t as widely saturated, it still gives you that air of exclusivity,” she says.
The popularity and U.S. expansion of direct-to-consumer brands like Sézane and Polène has added further fuel to an appetite for French labels that’s always been there, especially for the American shopper who’s fascinated by the siren call of French-girl style. So customers are purposefully seeking out other players that perhaps aren’t as widely known on their home turf, but share that design sensibility and history.
“You can’t separate fashion and style from France,” Johnson argues. “There’s a certain allure to these brands because they’re simply French. Agnès B. is contemporary, but it still has that je ne sais quoi. Charvet is on a different level—it’s on Place Vendôme, right around all the couture houses, and there’s something really special about the pieces.”
There’s also the fact that, in many cases, you have to go to France to get the full experience. Agnès B. only has one store in New York, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, compared to the dozen in Paris, where you can find the full brand assortment. You can buy a selection of Charvet slippers, scarves, and ties online, but the full made-to-measure experience is exclusive to its store.
“Where we’re moving in terms of luxury right now is more of those experiences, where it’s only you that has a certain piece,” Johnson says. “My Charvet made-to-measure shirt was a dream experience. I’ve had clothes made-to-measure, but [to] go through the experience with my sales associate where we walk through the fabric floor and he’s telling me about all the fabrics, we’re testing it out, I’m putting up fabrics against my skin, it was truly luxurious.”
The heritage these products carry with them is another compelling factor—as well as a novelty for many shoppers. “I think we also crave these heritage brands that we don’t have in New York,” argues Petrarca. “People crave that sense of legacy and history and knowing that people have loved these garments for a hundred years and they’re a sure bet.”
“There’s a huge shift that we’re seeing—a backlash against these micro-trends, of people wanting longevity in their items,” Baffert adds. “It’s something that we see [with] them turning to Poshmark, too, and it comes in waves, whether they’re searching for 14-karat gold or a 100% cashmere, it’s quality over quantity.”
As Agnès B. tells me, on her passport, her occupation is listed as “stylist,” and that’s what she sees her brand as.
“I don’t do fashion—I do style,” she says. “Fashion goes, but style stays.”