PARIS, Sep 22, 2004/ FW/ --- According to the French tribunal of commerce, Martine Sitbon, the ladies’ ready-to-wear brand, filed for bankruptcy on July 20th of this year.

The house, which bears the name of its designer-founder and chief executive officer, was founded in 1985. Known for its inventiveness and creativity, the fashion house had been rumoured since the year 2000 to be treading on very dangerous and uncertain financial waters.That was coincidently in the summer of 2000 during which time the house launched its men’s line.

It was a well-documented fact that Martine Sitbon had been operating in the red since pretty much its creation. For example in 2003, the house posted a loss of 800,000 EUROS or nearly $1.1 million. To offset the loss, a loan of 1 million EUROS had to be rapidly secured.

In spite of commencing its restructuring plan in 2001, the house was still pressed to turn things around and had simply not been able to do so.

Things went from delicate to bad when Ssanzi’s, the Korean group that owns a 66% stake in Martine Sitbon, own financial woes caught up to it too. The group was in fact forced to review its financing and support of the ailing French fashion house. That in turn led to its abrupt pullout.

No official statement from Martine Sitbon or her Paris press office had been made available to journalists at the time of release of this article as to its official plans for the future of the fashion house.

However, in an interview with Le Journal du Textile, Jean-Pierre Jais, general manager at Martine Sitbon’s, declared in August that the restructuring plan should take place over a period of four months and that negotiations are underway with several parties interested in taking over the French fashion house.