Lecarpentier: the agile Couture product development unit
Just outside Cholet, we visited Lecarpentier, a product development unit specializing in women's, men's and children's couture and ready-to-wear. Laurent Drouard, the company's managing director, passionately shares with us the keys to his company's success, its savoir-faire, and the demands of the professions.
With almost 40 years' experience, Lecarpentier is one of the benchmark product development units for leading luxury brands and Homes. Thanks to a solid team of 5 technical fashion designers, 4 prototypists and a technical manager, Lecarpentier collaborates with both renowned brands and young designers. Its strength lies in its agility and ability to work on a wide variety of products in warp and weft, but also in Knits.
Humanity at the heart of savoir-faire
To meet the company's daily challenges, Lecarpentier relies on a committed and passionate team: "it's great, in a small commune like Toutlemonde to have the chance to work with beautiful Home and on projects that are sometimes quite incredible. The profession is very interesting, varied, both highly technical and challenging, which motivates employees to stay" stresses Laurent Drouad.
The activity of the Product development unit covers technical fashion design, patternmaking, prototype assembly, fitting and standardization, which requires a high degree of versatility. "We have this ability to make all types of garments, to work with a diversity of fabrics, from muslin to woollens. This makes the profession very complex, but it's what makes our savoir-faire so rich and our employees so fulfilled" explains Laurent Drouard. As for Technical fashion design, it involves a mastery of technical savoir-faire: "you have to think about each design and visualize the garment in 3D, it requires you to be good at mathematics and geometry to be able to project yourself onto the assembly".
Innovation at the service of design
In order to adapt to the demands of the sector, the product development unit has invested in virtual prototyping technology by integrating Clo 3D: "it's a complementary tool to the traditional process. It saves time, validates design choices and sometimes allows us to explore avenues we would never have chosen" explains Laurent Drouard. He illustrates how technology can be harmoniously integrated into the textile design process, while emphasizing that "Clo 3D software requires mastery over which you need a lot of practice to get right".
The aim of using Clo 3D is to reduce the number of physical samples. Above all, it's an offering that meets the growing demand from young designers. A technology that is more difficult to integrate in the luxury sector: "the need to touch and see products remains crucial, especially for refined materials". That doesn't prevent it from gradually entering this niche.
A la carte services
One of the Product development unit's strengths is its ability to offer "à la carte" services. This personalized approach enables customers to select the process steps they need, from patternmaking to prototyping, via standardization:"this 'à la carte notion' is really the raison d'être of our Product development unit, which requires us to be very agile."
Managing contingencies is also a daily challenge, as requests evolve unpredictably. "We have to be able to constantly juggle projects with changing priorities and manage urgency to meet customer needs. That's why in our service offering we ensure responsiveness and flexibility" concludes Laurent Drouard.
To meet the demand for Made in France, collaboration with other industry players is crucial. Lecarpentier regularly works with partner manufacturing workshops that choose its expertise as a product development unit.
By focusing on know-how, innovation and responsiveness, Lecarpentier can thus respond nimbly to its customers' needs, and today establishes itself as an essential player in the development of Made in France and the preservation of savoir-faire.
For more information: https://www.be-lecarpentier.com/
