Q&A: Sézane founder Morgane Sézalory on the new brand taking the UK by storm

Morgane Sézalory brought Sézane, her online-only brand of French chic, to the UK this autumn and already it has become a firm favourite of fashion editors and discerning clients alike. She tells The Industry why being 100% digital enables her to deliver high quality, must-have fashion at a fair price, month upon month.

Could you explain the concept of Sézane and what you set out to achieve with it when you launched it in 2013?

Sézane is the first French fashion brand to function 100% online. It was important for me to create a brand with no intermediary straight from the most beautiful workshops to the consumer, which allows us to offer a desirable price point whilst retaining the best quality.

The idea of launching capsule collections each month, that are very relevant to that month, seems so simple and yet other bigger brands and retailers seem to have struggled to get that right. We have summer product in winter and vice versa, how do you achieve that and how does the customer respond?

When you sell online it’s really important to sell according to the season as people buy for immediate use. I work in advance on each monthly collection with my team to provide a full new collection each month and according to the season. We work closely with a selection of the best workshops around the world so that we can create new product quickly to adapt to demand. Having two seasonal mainline collections a year allows us to offer a staple product to our customer as well as the limited edition monthly drops which offer consistent newness and exclusivity that today’s shoppers desire.

Where do you get your inspiration from for your collections? I read you don’t follow trends as such, but the collection does nod to current trends.

I’m just being inspired by my needs, my vintage past and by every women I meet including my team, my family, my friends. I’m really aware of and want to cater for all women’s needs in fashion: I’m obsessed with original designs, the quest of the most magnificent fabrics and most of all the perfect cut!

How do you range plan? I think it is interesting how really great items are available in different colours or fabrics or heel heights, it really helps with wardrobe building. I am interested in the process behind that.

We study everything to make sure every women feels good in our clothes: shape, colours, heel heights. It’s important to create a wardrobe that can match different lifestyles. When we find the perfect shape for a product (like for our jeans 001) we want to make a full range of it with different colours and provide a large choice to our consumers, allowing them to choose from a base of must-have staples to build their wardrobe around.

It seems to me that the price/quality ratio is very good indeed. Are you able to achieve that because you are online only? Where are you sourcing and making your clothes?

We work without any intermediary. Our products come straight from the workshop to the consumer, which of course helps to keep a correct price/quality ratio. This is really important for us: to provide great quality products at fair prices. We work everywhere in the world, but naturally more in Europe, (85%) because it’s very easy visit each factory often.

We select the most beautiful and skillful workshops and look for skills wherever the speciality is…  for example we make our leather products in Portugal, Italy or France, Peru for the alpaca wool, china for silk, eastern Europe for most coats, shirts, feminine blouses & dresses, India for all embroidery products. We meet every factory and ensure sure they all meet our ethical values.

You have L’Appartement Sézane in Paris, which is a showroom for customers to try on and order the collection. Are you ever tempted to open a retail store?

We are really excited about L’Appartement Sézane, which is the first "connected" shop in France (a curated destination to try on clothes and accessories before buying them online). We will have shopping events at the apartment, for example we are having a Christmas shop in December where customers will be able to shop from everything that is in the space but we are not looking to open a full retail store, we want to keep Sézane digital.

Your previous venture Les Composantes was all about your edit of vintage finds, do vintage clothes influence the Sézane collection?

I’m a vintage lover, I’ve always loved vintage thanks to my family. It was my first experience of fashion, so of course it definitely influences the Sézane collections: shapes, colours, details. As a self-taught designer, I feel that my vintage past was the best fashion school. I’m filled with the history of fashion.

Yes, I understand you were not trained as a designer, what brought you to design your own line?

When I founded “Les Composantes” in 2007 I found myself increasingly customising my vintage finds; I discovered I wanted to design my own pieces. Also more and more women wanted to shop my selection, but vintage means unique and at some point my costumers really encouraged me to develop my own line.  A move into ready-to-wear with a special twist was a natural "next step".

Thank you for coming to the UK! How has the response been to the collection in this market and what was it that attracted you to the UK?

Having a digital brand allows us to think globally - you can reach every country, there is no limit. Beginning with the countries nearest to France was mandatory and UK is such an important country for fashion – I’m a big fan of British designers. My sister also lives in the UK and she kept telling me that her friends there loved the brand. We are really excited about our launch into the UK and to see that people like our brand.

I discovered your brand on Facebook, how essential is social media to your marketing strategy? And what other methods of marketing do you use?

Using social media has been incredibly important for growing awareness of me/Sézane because I was not connected at all with the fashion world. It has allowed us to reach so many people and helped us to communicate quickly and directly to our consumer. We are really happy to have such a strong and loyal community.

What are your ambitions for the brand moving forward?

We have so many ideas and projects coming up, including the Christmas shop at our apartment in December and in 2016 we plan to open a Café inside L’Appartement Sézane - we want the space to be very special, a desirable destination for Parisians and people visiting Paris.

And of course the next step is also to grow abroad and introduce the brand to new consumers who would like to shop our very French  style. We also hope to open an Apartment in London before 2017.