Vuarnet: textile license changes hands

By

Olivier Guyot

Published
Aug 29, 2014

A year after Vuarnet International, the company that owns the rights to the brand Vuarnet, selected the Italian company Brands & More to produce its apparel under license, the latter has been acquired by another company.

Tricolor Sport, which is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, has announced that is has purchased the Italian company based in Bergamo. Both companies were already partners, Brands & More having handed over its distribution license for Vuarnet products in the UK, France and Francophone countries to Tricolor Sport at the beginning of 2014.

Tricolor describes itself as a company created by six professional skiers, specialized in the distribution of high-end and niche skiwear. In purchasing Brands & More, the company’s management’s main concern was gaining control of the apparel license for Vaurnet.

In carrying out the acquisition, the company has also acquired its license agreements, records and orders. Tricolor has estimated its turnover for 2014 at 6.5 million euros.

"The acquisition of Brands and More is a unique opportunity to re-launch Worldwide an iconic brand. The awareness of Vuarnet is incredibly high in several countries despite the current low volume of sales,” said Jean-Paul Jaouen, president of Tricolor Sport. “The USA has no distributor yet and was very recently a leading country for Vuarnet sunglasses and although they are no longer very active there, the brand name remains extremely well known. If we compare for instance Vuarnet to Moncler, we believe that the potential of Vuarnet is substantial. Moncler is largely a single product company with the Doudoune representing 80% of its turnover. The development of the Vuarnet sportswear products, which will begin with an après-ski line-up, opens real potential of growth. Tricolor's objective with Vuarnet is to awaken a true Sleeping Beauty through strong sales and marketing organization."

Tricolor also plans to create a new design studio team and is looking for new distributors in Russia and northern European countries.