Chanel buys historic French shirtmaker Charvet, ending 188 years of independence

Chanel’s acquisition of the Paris maison gives the luxury group deeper access to menswear and brings the world’s first specialist shirt tailor into its stable of heritage brands.

Read a summary of this article on FAST.
Get bite-sized news via a new
cards interface. Give it a try.
Click here to return to FAST Tap here to return to FAST
FAST

Luxury group Chanel has acquired Charvet in a deal that will end 188 years of independent ownership at the renowned French shirtmaker.

The sale to Chanel includes Charvet’s headquarters and store on Paris’s Place Vendôme. The financial terms of the deal, which will give Chanel greater exposure to male customers, were not disclosed.

Founded by Joseph-Christophe Charvet in 1838, the Paris-based maison is the world’s first specialist shirt tailor. Charvet’s heirs sold the business in 1965 to their main fabric supplier, Denis Colban, whose son took on the business after his death in 1994.

Discussions over a deal began when Matthieu Blazy, Chanel’s new creative director, collaborated with Charvet to produce monogrammed shirts for his debut runway collection last October.

Chanel’s president of fashion, Bruno Pavlovsky, said the group was motivated to buy Charvet after the shirts proved a hit with clients and it became aware that the Colban family was open to selling.

“They don’t have any internal or family successors [and] we had a super good feeling . . . so we have decided that the future of Charvet will be with Chanel,” Pavlovsky told the FT.

Charvet has amassed an illustrious client list over the years, including Sir Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and the founder of its new owner, Coco Chanel. More recent devotees include David Beckham and Sofia Coppola.

Pavlovsky said Chanel and Charvet complement each other because Chanel is primarily a women’s brand with a growing number of male clients, whereas Charvet caters mainly to men but is growing its female client base.

Growth at Chanel, which sells women’s ready-to-wear collections, accessories, jewellery, haute couture and beauty, has started to pick up over the past year after sales and profits were dented in an industry-wide downturn.

Early collections from Blazy, who arrived from Bottega Veneta in April 2025, have helped reinvigorate the brand and propelled it to double-digit sales growth so far this year, executives told the FT in May. Chanel reported revenues of $19.3bn last year.

Chanel, which is controlled by the billionaire Wertheimer family, has invested significantly over many years to bring suppliers in-house to take greater control over the production process.

The group also has a history of acquiring smaller brands, such as Orlebar Brown, Scottish cashmere specialist Barrie and lingerie maker Eres.

Pavlovsky said Charvet would be operated as an independent business under Chanel’s ownership because the group wanted “to keep it so exclusive, so special, with such a level of sophistication”.

Charvet, which has diversified into ties, scarves and footwear, still has only one workshop, located in the country’s Indre region.

“My sister Anne-Marie and I are delighted by this new chapter in Charvet’s history, which is perfectly in keeping with the spirit and identity that have always defined our company,” said Charvet managing director Jean-Claude Colban.

Adrienne Klasa © 2026 The Financial Times.

This article originally appeared in The Financial Times.

Newsletter

Recommended Read

Subscribe to CNA's Recommended Read

A single handpicked story that we think you shouldn't miss. Just one a day.

Newsletter

Week in Review

Subscribe to our Chief Editor’s Week in Review

Our chief editor shares analysis and picks of the week's biggest news every Saturday.