Is the World Ready for the Return of Marithé + François Girbaud?
What happened to Marithé + François Girbaud? Once the very definition of designer denim, the venerable French fashion brand dissolved into obsolescence for the usual reasons: Mismanagement, overexpansion, the shifting cycles of trend and taste. No one stays on top forever.
But that doesn't mean they can't claw their way back. Marithé + François Girbaud is back, now known as simply Girbaud according to its website, where a proper relaunch quietly debuted in late 2023.
Girbaud's revival, however, is unique in that its biggest competition is itself. Or at least, what it used to be.
Established in the early '70s by married stylists, Marithé + François Girbaud pioneered a flavor of forward-looking garments ripped from time.
Its boxy workwear jackets, velvet blazers, generous tees, and signature baggy stonewashed jeans, branded with a M+FG tab on the fly and rear waistband, represented early crossover between denim and luxury spheres.
Girbaud's designs were historically inspired but broadly uncategorizable, a mélange of silhouettes more advanced than any "designer denim" brand that'd follow in its pioneering wake.
Early Girbaud collections might juxtapose knit sportswear, elegant shearling outerwear, and draping workwear in the span of only a few looks.
You bought into Marithé + François Girbaud with the jeans and you stayed because, well, who else offered a comparably tasteful blend of absurdly elegant bouclé sets and boilersuits?
One archivist likened vintage Marithé + François Girbaud creations to Issey Miyake's textile brilliance — compare Miyake's trademark Windcoat to Girbaud's generous outerwear — which I'd argue is less crazy than it sounds.
I'd also consider the knowing indulgence and figure-warping shapes of Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler as worthy peers.
It's not so crazy to associate denim with haute couture nowadays, what with everyone from Schiaparelli to Chanel doing pricey jeans. But not so long ago, in era before Helmut Lang sent selvedge denim down the runway, this was unheard of.
Girbaud's influence was so potent that it inspired luxury labels to reconsider casualwear and casualwear to reconsider avant ingenuity for the everyday.
Would there be a Levi's RED were there no Girbaud? Unlikely.
Girbaud was one of the first labels to bridge staples and statement garms, and it earned many famous admirers in the process. Michael Jordan, whose style is (I'd argue) unfairly maligned, was a fan, famously wearing a terrific set from Girbaud sibling label Closed to throw out a first pitch in 1993.
Other famous fans were as disparate as Janet Jackson, Michael Keaton, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, and, decades later, Beyoncé.
By the '90s, Girbaud had become a recognizable name in utilitarian luxe, frequently referenced in the lyrics of Biggie, Outkast, Master P, and Lil Wayne.
Teenaged one-hit wonders Kriss Kross dressed in backwards Girbaud denim for smash single "Jump."
Co-founder François Girbaud wasn't entirely happy about his label's crossover success, however.
“Somewhere, the company was running too much in some direction, too much in hip-hop stuff,” the French designer dismissively said, in choppy English, at a 2007 party. "I’m not the rap people. Sure, we introduced the baggy jeans, we introduced stonewashed, and all this stuff in the '60’s or '70’s, I never target just to be ethnic. It’s stupid.”
Poor choice of words, to say the least.
Maybe it was the inexplicable disdain for its famous customers, maybe it was a lack of innovation, maybe it was the 2008 financial crisis (which definitely didn't help), regardless, Marithé + François Girbaud was on the outs by 2010, undergoing legal reorganization due to flagging sales.
And, in 2012, Marithé + François Girbaud declared bankruptcy.
The label still exists, however, and was producing collections for its remaining flagship stores in France as recently as 2019 but has remained mostly quiet until it began teasing its relaunch on November 21, 2023.
Likely due to money troubles, Girbaud's parent company previously sold off international licenses that seem to be doing quite well. After rebranding the label for South Korea in 2019, LAYER now owns the Marithé + François Girbaud's license for all of Asia, producing domestic-exclusive collections and operating dozens of physical stores.
These offerings bear little resemblance to the original Marithé + François Girbaud, though, which has itself enjoyed a more incidental resurgence in the West.
Over in America, where Girbaud was once the hottest brand in the world, the brand has garnered cache among Y2K-obsessed teens, who determinately scour thrift stores for vintage scores.
Born decades after Marithé + François Girbaud's heyday, this new generation of fans is likely what inspired the modern rebrand.
Ill-spoken founders aside, Girbaud is primed for a proper revival.
Unlike rival denim upstarts like Evisu and True Religion, labels that usurped Girbaud in the aughts, the French imprint maintains a potent design legacy built on more than cache alone (though there's still cache to spare).
To this day, young collectors covet some of the more adventurous Girbaud statement pieces — the brand's convertible zippered outerwear has gone viral on TikTok more than a few times and particularly primo examples are always floating around on the secondhand market for a few hundred bucks.
But it was an early 2025 collaboration with Supreme that truly cemented the viability of a Girbaud revival. Here is the world's foremost name in streetwear, platforming the original streetwear denim brand. Past meets present indicative of the future.
This article was published on December 4, 2023, and updated to reflect recent Girbaud news.
