Freestanding boutiques in Los Angeles and Miami — plus a foray into fragrance — are among headline projects in the near term for Simon Porte Jacquemus and his new chief executive officer Sarah Benady, who officially started Tuesday.
“It’s been a year that I was looking for someone to help me, to be next to me and to fully embrace what I’ve had in mind for this house since forever,” Jacquemus said in an exclusive interview, confirming a WWD report on Jan. 28 that Benady, most recently Celine’s North America president, would take up the management helm, freeing up the Frenchman to concentrate on design, image and brand storytelling.
He’s been doing double duty as creative director and CEO since Bastien Daguzan stepped down in December 2023, initiating an upscaling drive and making further steps into brick-and-mortar retailing by planting directly operated new boutiques in New York and London, plus franchise locations in Seoul and Dubai.
Now he and Benady are relishing the chance to double down on products, explore more international markets, enlarge the nascent retail network and finally enter the beauty category with French giant L’Oréal as its long-term licensee — and new minority investor.
Benady arrives at Jacquemus less than a month after the L’Oréal deal was announced, setting the stage for the French fashion house’s next phase of growth.
Seated next to the designer for the interview, Benady likened working with Jacquemus to what it must have been like to partner with Christian Dior or Hubert de Givenchy at the early stages of their fashion houses.
“When I first spoke with Simon, I immediately felt that he was the designer of our century,” she said. “There is something very special about him — his energy, his work, his authenticity. There’s something very solar, very warm and you just want to be around him and be surrounded by that. There is nothing more energizing than to be able to support his vision and the brand.
Simon Porte Jacquemus
David Luraschi/Courtesy of Jacquemus
“There are not many brands that are only 15 years old and that have accomplished that much at this stage,” Benady asserted, mentioning the bestselling “It” bags, the Chiquito and Bambino, the very promising La Pochette Rond Carré style and partnerships with such blue-chip companies as Nike and Apple.
For his part, Jacquemus described an immediate complicity with Benady, “someone with a business mind, but also a product lover.…We had the same feeling and the same ambition for the brand, for where we want to go.…It’s about finding the right balance of development and protecting the brand.”
The designer also lauded her varied CV and trajectory through department stores, contemporary fashion chains and a luxury house.
A graduate of French business school HEC, Benady started her career as a project manager at French department store Printemps, later joining The Kooples, first as international director and then president, later logging four years as North American president of Ba&sh before moving four years ago to helm Celine’s North American operations.
Jacquemus declined to give precise business targets, but both described lots of runway for development.
First up: The Los Angeles boutique is slated to open at 8800 Melrose Avenue in late April, and Miami in the first quarter of 2026.
The designer said Europe would probably be a “main focus” for freestanding retail next, but there are other geographies in his sights.
“In South America there is room for Jacquemus. Asia is also a big potential market,” he said, also highlighting the performance of its boutique in the Dubai Mall, which opened in April 2024 with Chalhoub Group as the partner. “We might open some other stores there as well, because it’s very, very successful,” Jacquemus said.
In addition to its online store and permanent boutiques, Jacquemus operates seasonal resort boutiques in Saint-Tropez, Ibiza, Monaco, Capri, Courchevel and Mykonos. The brand is also sold through about 400 wholesale doors in 60 countries.
Having planted his stores in top luxury locations such as Avenue Montaigne in Paris, Spring Street in New York and New Bond Street in London, the designer has attracted a clientele in line with the brand elevation strategy signaled with a fashion show at Versailles in July 2023, and further reinforced with his “Sculptures” collection paraded in January 2024 in front of the likes of Julia Roberts at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the South of France.
The Jacquemus store on New Bond Street in London.
“My more elevated silhouettes are resonating with the new Jacquemus era,” he said, mentioning as one example his popular Ovalo suit jacket, priced at 1,190 euros. Retail prices for apparel currently top out at 3,490 euros for leather and shearling jackets.
Asked if his freestanding boutiques were meeting business expectations, Jacquemus shot back with an immediate “yes,” noting that “every day we have a new record with the number of clients in Courcheval, in New York. It’s step-by-step, of course, but it’s encouraging.”
Benady concurred: “I was very impressed when I saw the performances of the freestanding stores, and I was very surprised to see the high-end product that we were selling in those stores.”
In addition, she lauded architecture and art curation that “makes you feel at home, but in a very elevated environment, which is never an easy balance to find, something that is welcoming and warm enough but still extremely high-end and elevated. You’re immediately immersed in the brand environment.”
Among her missions are to “spread the retail culture and clienteling culture across the different stages of the organization.”
In addition to testing higher price points, Jacquemus had the courage to step away recently from cinematic outdoor show locations — who can forget the lavender and wheat fields, or the Camargue salt flats? — to more intimate displays, like his January show at the oak-paneled Paris apartment of architect Auguste Perret.
Despite its more modest scale, the “La Croisière” show secured almost 140 million online impressions, a new record for Jacquemus.
A look from “La Croisière” show by Jacquemus.
Filippo Fior/Courtesy of Jacquemus
“Sometimes we don’t need much, and I want people to look at the clothes and the collection, and not just a beautiful landscape,” the designer said.
During the interview, Jacquemus spoke at length about his passion for perfume and his impatience to finally land on counter.
“It’s a dream that I’ve been vocal about for a few years,” he said. “When you grow up in the countryside as a kid, you don’t look at fashion shows, you look at perfume ads on TV.”
The designer was a teenager in 2004 when the Baz Luhrmann-directed Chanel No.5 commercial starring Nicole Kidman came out, and he was transfixed by the storytelling. He asked a friend to record it for him and he memorized every detail.
(In a full-circle moment, he finally met Kidman at the 2023 Met Gala, explaining to her that the “J” pendant dangling on the bare back of his date, Bad Bunny, was inspired by that ad.)
“I do feel that we already are a perfume brand because we are solar, we are already in the mood,” he said. “We just don’t have the product yet. It’s a big detail, but it’s just a detail.”
To be sure, he’s impatient to come out with such an accessible, universal product as perfume. “It’s so Jacquemus to speak to a lot of people. There is nothing snob here,” he said.
Despite long development times to bring a new perfume to the market, the designer has already formulated everything in his mind.
“The image and the idea I have hasn’t change since eight years,” he said. “And I think this woman does not exist in the luxury perfume world, so there is a room for that woman.”
And his ambition is high.
“My goal is to be the perfume of my generation, like a Mugler, like a Calvin Klein, like Jean Paul Gaultier — all those perfume that we all have stories with,” he said.
Likewise, he’s committed to the brand’s elevation strategy.
“We transform ourselves step by step,” he said. “I want to continue to listen to what I have in my heart.”
He also said he’s heartened to have Benady, a woman and a mother, as his new CEO.
“I think it’s beautiful in an environment where there is a lot of men,” he said. “I’m surrounded by women today. It’s beautiful, and I’m happy.”
