Yves Chareton invests in own shops opening

The people are stiff crazy of Hartford. First of its famous shirts including mixtures of impressions, details of embroidery and the dizzying range of tones - not less than 30 proposed every season - allowed the brand to become an essential reference. Totally hooked, Jack Nicholson spends each season astronomical amounts for each of the new models in all colours (a shirt is sold between 90 and 200 euros). There is little during his Paris stay, Brad Pitt has robbed the shop men of the place des Victoires. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Michel Field or Frédéric Beigbeder are not at rest. And it is also true women, Estelle Lefebure, Sandrine Kiberlain, Jane Birkin and Inès de La Fressange regularly are the Hartford. Which a printed Liberty dress (one of the strengths of the brand), which in Indian batik shirt, a top in Scottish tartan or a pull wool and cashmere ultrafine and mellow...

Yves Chareton, the founder, not had yet never imagined work a day in the cloth. Still less dream of being at the head of a thriving company whose products face in three thousand five hundred points of sales in the world with a turnover (2005) of 15 million euros. Born in 1953 into a family composed of an industrial father in the hospital equipment and a mother at home, Yves, who was not a "cador" in class, was rock guitarist. To reassure parents, after obtaining a B (sciences ECO) ferry, between however at the higher Institute of commerce, then integrates the subsidiary of a Bank of business where he is bored.

A trip to New York

How has germinated the idea of Hartford "In 1978, Bus Palladium, at five o'clock in the morning, after a discussion with a musician friend who complained of do not find the old American shirts we chinions at the time of the school." Yves Chareton offers him a trip to New York to seek. Barely arrived at Big Apple, the duo puts hands on a stock of shirts for the years 1950-1960 in printed materials which evoke the American dream. They encounter even a manufacturer who agreed to reproduce them in lots of vintage fabrics. Adventure starts as soon as our friends back to Paris. Because of at the outset, the trendy boutiques adhere to mark Hartford, a name chosen for its Anglo-Saxon sound. And after six months of activity, Yves Chareton can leave the Bank.

Now only master on board after the departure of his partner who took his cap of musician, Chareton enriches its lines with the addition of a line of swimwear for men carried out also in retro prints, and then a collection of mesh. In 1989, the road crosses the Victoire shops owner who asks him to help develop its collections women. The association, who encouraged him to Hartford in parentheses, will last until 1999, year where, with his freedom, he reactivates its mark. Women's ready-to-wear (which today represents 55 of turnover) was founded in 2000. First inspired collections men, he gained little by little his identity: casual style and fashion in materials such as varnished by time and fabrics that this tireless traveller finds at the four corners of the globe.

For reasons of cost, the manufacture of the Hartford collections were relocated to the Morocco (550 000 exhibits each year, including 200 000 to 250 000 shirts). Yves Chareton invests in own shops opening. Already ten to its assets in France, five in Paris, and the opening of a megastore for men is expected a few months on the left bank. Another project for 2007: the launch of a line complete for the child.