What Sonia Rykiel is known for
Founded in 1968 when Sonia Rykiel opened her first Left Bank knitwear boutique in Paris. The original company was liquidated in 2019 and its Paris stores closed; the brand has continued under new ownership, with G-III Apparel Group since 2021.
Sonia Rykiel opened her first boutique on the Left Bank in Paris in May 1968, timed, by coincidence, to the same month as the student uprisings that shook the city. She sold knitwear that broke deliberately from the era's structured tailoring: garments with seams left visible on the outside, hems left unfinished, and slogans knitted directly into sweaters. Her 'Poor Boy' sweater became the brand's breakout design, worn publicly by Brigitte Bardot and Sylvie Vartan, and Audrey Hepburn reportedly visited the shop herself and bought several. The label grew into a full ready-to-wear house that earned Rykiel the nickname 'Queen of Knits.' That original independent company did not survive intact: after years of falling revenue under owner First Heritage Brands, the Paris Commercial Court ordered Sonia Rykiel into liquidation in July 2019, closing its seven remaining stores in France and Monaco and laying off 135 employees when no buyer emerged for the operating business. The brand's intellectual property and archives were subsequently sold; Showroomprivé co-founders Eric and Michael Dayan initially acquired the label, and it has been under G-III Apparel Group's ownership since 2021, continuing as a licensed ready-to-wear brand distributed through department and specialty stores rather than the founder-run independent house it began as.
How ORBIS reads this city
Best for — Knitwear, Parisian
France
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