At Grandis, the alliance of talents for integrated excellence
Near Granville, three hours from Paris, a discreet but modern building houses both a garment making workshop and the headquarters of the Les Ateliers Grandis group. Under the impetus of Marc-Antoine Juvin, its Managing Director, this independent group has been weaving an original model over the years, where excellence in craftsmanship, local roots and social commitment form the pillars of a complete French manufacturing chain.
With fifteen workshops stretching from Saint-Pair-sur-Mer to Châteauneuf-sur-Cher, via Commequiers and La Ferté-Macé, Les Ateliers Grandis, with its 1,100-strong workforce, doesn't just produce for the greatest luxury Houses. They are inventing a new way of doing things, combining social responsibility, development and accountability, through the reflections of a leader driven by a collective, long-term vision.
A family history rooted in the region
Photo credits : ©Les Ateliers Grandis"
It all began in 1993, when Daniel Juvin - chairman of the group and father of the current managing director - took over a workshop in liquidation. Going against the tide of relocations, he took the bold gamble of preserving French savoir-faire in garment making for the greatest luxury Houses. "My father thought there was a positioning to be taken in the luxury sector, as this required rare savoir-faire and proximity to the design studios", recounts Marc-Antoine Juvin.
This first workshop, quickly renamed Grandis, laid the foundations for a singular entrepreneurial adventure, built around the safeguarding of workshops that were often in difficulty, without a buyer and/or likely to undergo relocation,"We were in an atomized universe where there were lots of small workshops with a maximum of 45 people and a workshop manager who managed everything", explains the manager. The approach is as much human as economic: "these are fine professions, and we have to fight to keep them in France. It's necessary to preserve the richness of our territory", he exclaims.
In 2016, Marc-Antoine Juvin, then a young business school graduate who had worked for a major French retail chain, decided to return to his roots: "what's important to me is my territory, the family, getting back to my roots", he explains, even though "with my father, we always said that taking over the business was neither a right nor a duty". That's how he joined the group and started at the heart of the professions: in the workshop. "I learned for several months in the workshop, working on cutting. Then I studied production and forecasting tools and developed planning tools. From then on, I worked more on the information systems side", testifies Marc-Antoine Juvin. Today, it's with great determination that he drives a corporate project in which every employee is involved in the vision: "We've set up a working group to involve everyone in our group ecosystem. It's all very well to talk strategy, but it has to have a soul!".
Preserving savoir-faire, reinventing professions, valuing the human
At Les Ateliers Grandis, preserving savoir-faire is a strategic commitment, a promise made to artisans and prestigious customers alike. In its fifteen workshops, the group cultivates a mosaic of professions of excellence: flou / soft dressmaking, the art of tailoring, double-sided work, as well as leatherwork, lingerie and swimwear. These are all areas in which Les Ateliers Grandis meets the specifications of the greatest luxury Houses.
Each operation is controlled, the gesture is precise and untransferable other than through training and experience. Thus, each workshop has its referent trainer, responsible for training recruits in 400-hour sessions. And the need is constant: "we recruit 100 people every year, and 80% have never touched a sewing machine", confides Marc-Antoine Juvin. Professional retraining, made possible by the local roots of the workshops and a work rhythm compatible with family life, thus becomes a powerful social lever. This orientation is reflected in the two main areas of investment by the group since its inception: infrastructure and training.
Training is not simply a heat transfer of skills: it also feeds the evolution of professions. By completely rethinking the historical classification of jobs, previously compartmentalized by activity, the group has introduced a single profession: "garment making craftsman", capable of assembling a piece from A to Z. A multi-skilled craft, far removed from the sequential industrial logic. Each newcomer starts out as an "artisan in training" and progresses to a level of multi-skilled mastery, with the option of specializing as an "expert" in a specific activity: cutting, machine sewing, hand sewing or ironing. "I want to fight for the qualitative model, I don't have production lines, I have manufacturing teams", sums up Marc-Antoine Juvin. For each design entrusted, the craftsmen meet, discuss, test and adjust. "In the Granville workshop there is a dedicated school area, where outside training periods it becomes a place for testing and in particular for finding solutions for customers, a sort of "technical plateau", explains the manager.
A federated, agile group at the service of design and its customers
This model reinforces the group's agility because in fashion, every season brings its share of novelties: a never-before-studied fabric, a daring cut, an unexpected technical challenge. "Reacting to contingencies is the very profession of production. To do this, we need unity, a group spirit", explains Marc-Antoine Juvin. Thanks to this organization into complementary and responsive teams, within the workshops and by pooling the savoir-faire of its fifteen companies, Les Ateliers Grandis is able to design, prototype, produce and deliver within tight deadlines, while ensuring a constant level of excellence.
It's within this logic of agile and global service that the supply division has been structured: "Now we receive requests here (at headquarters) and dispatch production between the different workshops. We have a real department that coordinates design, raw material purchasing, manufacturing and logistics". With direct links to the workshops, the stated aim is clear: to offer a complete French manufacturing chain, from patternmaking to the finished piece, via dyeing or embroidery in the future. However, the manager points out that "the workshops exchange directly with the customers' technical teams because, they are the ones who do, who know!", he exclaims. In the Product development unit, we operate "by customer universe", as each Home "has its own way of building and standardizing". Dedicated teams thus ensure both technical precision and confidentiality. They can intervene "from a sketch or a prototype already produced", with flexibility and savoir-faire.
Driven by strong values - respect, commitment, progress - the group has also embarked on a comprehensive CSR approach. "CSR must not be on the side, it must infuse every step of the process". This structural and human requirement gives Ateliers Grandis a special place in the ecosystem of the French way. By working together, we have created a common vision shared by all the workshops in the group. Neither a follower nor a giver of lessons,"to make beautiful in order to do good, to work in good conditions, to support families, to give more to the planet than we take from it, that is our horizon", concludes the leader.
Discover the fact sheets of the companies in the Les Ateliers Grandis group: Grandis Couture, Sidma Couture, Normandie Couture, Sefa Couture, Atlantis Couture, Rousseau Couture, Atelier de Couture Moutierrois, La Ferté Couture, Confection du Coglais, Macosa, SLS Couture, Socovil Couture, Derose Couture, Socaco Couture and Manufacture de Couture Commequiéroise.
