Swimwear Brand Réard to Be Reintroduced Globally This Spring

Swimwear and resort brand Réard is being reintroduced to the global markets in the spring. Richard Emanuel, the brand’s chairman and serial entrepreneur best known for his investments in telecom, acquired the intellectual property assets of the brand a few years ago. He said the plan is to do the relaunch this spring via a dedicated e-commerce platform, and then throughout the balance of the year and part of 2018 to introduce the brand to key department store doors. According to Emanuel, the company would then test pop-up locations next year at select resorts, with an eye toward building out company-branded retail sites, possibly in 2019. The brand is targeting the luxury space, where swimwear’s starting price point is $200, but can go as high as $650. According to data provided by Emanuel, the global swimwear market could reach $28.3 billion by 2020, while the U.S. market could reach $4.5 billion in 2018. Louis Réard, a French automobile engineer who became a fashion designer, founded the Réard brand. It was Réard who, in 1946, created the first two-piece swimsuit that dared to expose the wearer’s navel, which he named the bikini. He and his wife moved to Lausanne, Switzerland in 1980. Without any children

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