RELOCATION: POUZAUGES

Industrial director David Burgel gives us the lowdown on the House of Longchamp’s new production site in Pouzauges, France

COINCIDING WITH THE brand’s 70th anniversary milestone celebrations in September, the House of Longchamp has also inaugurated its new production site in Pouzauges, in the Vendée region of France. Following the House’s first walk down the runway during New York Fashion Week, and its anniversary reception in the heart of Paris at the Opéra Garnier, the new workshop offers yet another occasion to celebrate the brand’s development during this anniversary year.

Perfectly integrated into its environment, the site features a 50,000-square-metre park, peppered with local plant species and hedgerows, minimising the impact of the surrounding buildings and roads on the landscape. Whereas a combination of rainwater harvesting, dual-flow ventilation and optimal use of natural lighting aims to control all the site’s energy impacts and costs. The 7,000-square-metre building of natural lighting benefits from a superb view through the large fitted bay windows, as well as providing an optimal working environment to the 70 leather craftswomen of the former Montournais workshop.

The newest addition propels Longchamp as a modern, robust and sustainable organisation with a total of six French workshops located in the Loire region: in Segré, Rémalard, Ernée, Combrée, ChâteauGontier, and Pouzauges, alongside the workshops of Longchamp Tunisia and Longchamp Mauritius.

The Pouzauges illustrates Longchamp’s desire to maintain its production facilities in France, allowing the brand to increase its local production capacities, and to be more responsive to an increasingly demanding market regarding delivery times throughout the world. Besides its strategic location close to major roads and within an employment-

compatible area, which increases Longchamp’s recruitment potential, preserves its know-how and supports its international development, the workshop also provides the opportunity to set up a teaching studio to train the staff who will replace retiring workers, and to subsequently create a new workshop for 30 people.

What is the origin of this new site?

I suppose, it’s due to the fact that our workshop in Montournais no longer matched our work environment requirements and our desire to expand. Therefore, we decided to look for a place that met three objectives: keep all our employees by selecting a nearby location, move closer to the main roads to encourage recruitment, and create a high-quality workspace. A study has been conducted beforehand for the Pouzauges, making sure all the current jobs are maintained without obliging the staff to move out of their homes or even increase their commuting time.

What innovations have been implemented on this site?

We have lighting in the form of Sheds in the upper part of the workshops, with the large bay windows offering views of the surrounding landscape from inside the workshop, and all in all, providing a more diffused natural light, and contributing to a better work and eco-friendly environment. The car park includes sockets for electric cars and a bicycle parking lot, and features vegetated valleys, which through the use of macrophytes, filter the hydrocarbons from our staff’s vehicles, allowing us to avoid the construction of conventional underground networks. The roof is equipped with a rainwater recovery system, which is used to supply toilets and to water our green spaces, and the entire site is lit by LEDs, whether indoors or outdoors, generating low power consumption.

What is your relationship with your suppliers and subcontractors?

We work on long-term relationships, based on a real spirit of partnership. Regardless of their location in the world, our subcontractors benefit from Longchamp’s technical assistance and training, either on-site or in our French workshops, enabling them to adapt their production methods to ours, by simply investing in the same machines as ours, and by matching their flows with those of our workshops.

Is this site intended to produce goods for international markets, or is it specialised in a product category?

Like all our production sites in France or abroad, this site will produce leather items for our points of sale around the world.

The workshop is designed to produce all the leather goods marketed by Longchamp, except for small leather goods. For several years now, we have been working to improve the versatility of our craftspeople, in diversifying their tasks and postures. This policy has enabled us to improve the comfort of our workspace significantly.

Do your customers value the concept of “Made in France”?

We are proud of the quality of all our products, whatever their origin of manufacture. The “Made by Longchamp” label guarantees the quality of our products, identical in all our production sites. We are well ahead of the curve on this subject, making sure to mark the country of manufacture of each product clearly and transparently.