Luxury leather goods brand Camille Fournet set to expand in US, India, Middle East

In 2025, French luxury leather goods brand Camille Fournet is celebrating its 80th anniversary. The brand was founded in 1945 by Camille Fournet, a craftsman based in the Aisne region of France. Over the years, the company has broadened its business, notably with leather goods.

In the 1960s, Camille Fournet began to create leather watch straps for French and Swiss watch makers. Tapping this expertise, and producing at a factory that was opened in the 1970s in Tergnier, France, the brand launched the first Camille Fournet watch straps in 2006, then introduced a range of leather goods in 2020, notably belts and handbags. The Camille Fournet brand now accounts for 25% of the company’s €40 million revenue.

To continue to grow, the brand, which opened a store on rue Cambon in Paris in 2006, and has two stores in Japan in addition to various department store concessions, is keen to boost its export retail business.

“Japan has always been our main market in terms of in-store sales, but the USA is now number one in terms of e-commerce sales. There is a strong appetite for French leather goods [in the US],” said Jean-Yves Basin, CEO of Camille Fournet.

Its unisex leather products retail on average at prices between €1,500 and €1,700. The brand will be available in New York in March via a space in “a French department store,” said Basin. Camille Fournet’s retail expansion drive will then focus on opening shop-in-shops in India and the Middle East: at Galeries Lafayette in Mumbai this summer, and in Dubai in the autumn.  

Camille Fournet was bought in 1994 by its current president and majority shareholder Jean-Luc Déchery, while new minority shareholders bought stakes last year. The company is also strengthening its third-party production business for luxury labels.

A year ago, it invested €7 million in a new facility at its Tergnier production site, with the goal of increasing its handbag manufacturing capacity for French luxury labels.