Follow-up to my previous post:
Brushing off Paris clothiers
By Andrea A. Quong International Herald Tribune
Friday, March 5, 2004
Like most of the clothing merchants whose shops line the narrow streets in the Sedaine-Popincourt quarter, Lin Changli rarely speaks to the press. But in February, as he watched customs agents block off Rue Sedaine at the heart of this de facto garment district in eastern Paris, he grew incensed.
The agents scoured storage rooms and delivery vans, scrutinized identity papers and business licenses, and forbade shopkeepers from speaking to each other or from leaving, witnesses said.
"Me, I don't understand what they have against us," said Lin, as he stood next to racks of delicate spring blouses in his shop, Meili' Style. "True, we are foreigners. But France isn't a racist country."
Since the early 1990s, several hundred French-Chinese entrepreneurs have set up shop here in the 11th arrondissement, transforming what was once a sleepy neighborhood into a significant commercial entrepôt for wholesale clothing in Western Europe.
Mostly immigrants from Wenzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province on China's prosperous eastern seaboard, the merchants sell ready-to-wear women's clothing imported from China or made in French ateliers. Buyers come from across Europe, from Poland to the Netherlands, from Germany to Spain, and sometimes farther afield, to fill their delivery vans and trucks with inexpensive blouses, jackets, satin evening gowns and blue jeans, among other items.
The Wenzhou immigrants were among the first Chinese to come to France nearly a century ago, and over the decades those who settled here typically worked in clothing and leather goods manufacturing or in restaurants. Yet it was here in eastern Paris where they came into their own.
"It wasn't easy for us to get to where we are now," said Lin, who followed his parents into the trade and opened his own shop more than six years ago. "It was years of work."
But these days the merchants have reason to feel demoralized. Government scrutiny, in the form of stepped-up inspections, financial audits and vigorous ticketing of delivery vans, has intensified in the wake of campaigns by neighborhood residents and the local mayor to rein in the growth of the garment trade.
Critics blame the merchants for the disappearance of neighborhood businesses like bakeries and cafés, as well as for traffic congestion, fire hazards and noise.
"We're not against the wholesale industry really," said Jean-Yves Camus, an adviser to the 11th arrondissement's mayor, Georges Sarre. "But it is the kind of industry that has to go out to the suburbs or wherever there is free space."
Sarre organized demonstrations twice last year against what he called "la mono-activité textile," shutting down city hall in May in protest. In December the city of Paris set up a quasi-private association headed by Sarre to buy up the leases of commercial property that might fall into the hands of the wholesalers, Camus said. In the last year, the Prefecture of Police has closed more than 20 stores for code violations, he said.
But merchants say some businesses are starting to fold anyway. With slack demand and rock-bottom prices persisting since last year, the economic climate has soured.
Some merchants are questioning whether there are too many of them. In the 11th arrondissement alone, the Association of Chinese Prêt-à-Porter Merchants in France claims 350 members. At the height of the boom, from 1999 to 2000, nearly 100 shops opened in one year, merchants say.
"At one point there will be so many shops that it will be impossible for them to grow this way," said Camus who estimates that there are about 500 shops. "The best way is for them to regulate themselves so less and less people are coming and opening shops."
If the Chinese merchants are at the center of a political brouhaha, they are facing a potentially even bigger economic storm.
Since the 1980s, France's clothing and textile industry has seen manufacturing plummet amid a rise in cheap imports from overseas factories. As trade strictures between China and the European Union loosened, small and medium-sized French-Chinese wholesalers and manufacturers in Paris benefited from a wave of imported ready-to-wear women's apparel from China. While some place orders with factories in China, others produce apparel in France using imported fabrics. Many serve as depots for cheap imports.
By offering the lowest prices, the French-Chinese merchants gained market share from traditional producers and wholesalers in Sentier, the historic Jewish heart of the clothing industry in the city center.
"They sell more but at a lower price," explained a shop manager there. "They sell more but their profit margins are less."
As France's clothing industry made its transition into a global economy, that approach apparently worked. French-Chinese entrepreneurs opened stores on the edge of Sentier and in Aubervilliers, north of Paris. Nowhere did the trade flourish more than in the 11th arrondissement.
"The 11th arrondissement of Paris has always been a center for the garment trade," said Daniel Wertel, president of the Syndicat de Paris de la Mode Féminine, which represents some 300 manufacturers. "What we can observe for several years is the replacement of European clothing manufacturers by those of Asian origin who have developed the volume of commercial activity in this quarter."
But like traditional wholesalers and manufacturers in Sentier, the French-Chinese merchants are essentially middlemen catering to independent retailers — small and mid-sized shops that increasingly can't compete with big retail chains like Zara, Mango and Celio, many of which now go directly to manufacturers in China or other countries.
That means less business for wholesalers and small French manufacturers.
"The importance of wholesalers is decreasing because the market share of the independent retailers has been decreasing for the past few years," according to Gildas Minvielle, senior analyst at the Institut Français de la Mode. "And wholesalers were the main suppliers of independent retailers."
Since the late 1980s, independent retailers' market share has tumbled from 50 percent to 20 percent, Minvielle said.
Meanwhile, imports from Chinese manufacturers have steadily gained ground since China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. French clothing imports from China grew 13 percent in value in 2003, according to statistics provided by the Institut Français de la Mode.
By the end of this year, all quotas on clothing and textiles will have been fully eliminated, completing a gradual 10-year phase-out schedule under World Trade Organization rules.
"Everyone is wondering what is going to happen," Minvielle said. "It's the last year to prepare for the Big Bang." - Such global economic forces have long altered the rhythms of life in the Sedaine-Popincourt quarter. Before and after World War I, Sephardic Jews from Greece and Turkey established textile and tablecloth shops here, and neighborhood stores sprang up to provide residents and tradesmen with their daily needs. More recently, the bakers and the butchers lost customers to the big supermarket chains and sold their leases to garment merchants. Now those merchants face an uncertain future. On Rue Chemin Vert, a salesman in a motorcycle helmet enters a frosted-glass storefront and opens a compact suitcase to display fabric samples. ''They come by motorcycle or Métro,'' explained Madame Zheng, 31, who runs a small manufacturing outfit, Paris' Styl, along with her husband, brother-in-law and father-in-law. Afraid of getting ticketed and with no place to park, customers and tradesmen have adapted to the shaky political climate. But adapting to the global market may prove more difficult. Zheng buys fabrics imported from China to make small batches — no more than 100 — of clothing, often tailored to customers' demands. It is too risky and expensive to import clothes or fabric from China by the container load, she explained. Around the corner on Rue Popincourt, Lin Changli of Meili' Style said he was willing to accept change. ''Every trade has its time,'' he said. ''Today this is a ready-to-wear women's clothing store. But five, 10 years from now, it could be a bakery.''
* Andrea A. Quong is a freelance journalist based in Paris.
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