October 25, 2002/ FWD/ --- One year ago, Cacharel didn't even have an office in New York.

But by the end of this year, the colorful French label expects to have close to 100 retail outlets in the United States.

Other hip foreign labels might be buffeted by chilly recession winds, but not Cacharel.

The house will register a double-digit increase in American volume this year, to 12,000 pieces.

After fading mightily from the US and international scene, the brand has enjoyed an impressive foreign expansion after it hired the British duo of Suzanne Clements and Inacio Ribeiro to design the collection.

"Inacio and Suzanne respect the Cacharel name and yet give it their own energy. They are able to understand the history of Cacharel while connecting with the spirit, the prints, stripes and colors," beams Cacharel's US director, Guillaume Bousquet, in a recent interview.

The spring summer 2003 collection they showed in Paris this month has lots of attractive separates with '70s-inspired broad-stripe St Tropez crepe shirts, sexily flared silk skirts with denim waistbands, cool embroidered tank tops with ornithological designs and precise, ever-so-French pleated cotton dresses and shirts.

Think Brigitte Bardot and Jean Seberg at their most coquettishly glorious in the 1960s.

The son of Cacharel's founder and former mayor of the historic Provencal city Nimes, Jean Bousquet, Guillaume moved to Manhattan three weeks after September 11, when most Europeans were still fleeing the city.

One month after arriving, he opened Cacharel's US showroom in a lovely, airy space on the corner of Broome and Greene streets.

"It's the perfect space for us. It echoes the fresh, easy spirit of the label. We had to be at the center of things in New York, and there is nowhere more central than Soho," smiles Bousquet, clearly enjoying the light-drenched atmosphere of the US headquarters.

Though competing brands are suffering steep sales decreases, Guillaume has nonetheless managed to add Barneys' soon-to-open San Francisco store to his existing client list of 15 Nordstrom stores, and 75 multi-brand boutiques.

Besides Clements Ribeiro's catchy and creative input, Cacharel has clearly benefited from its price point, which positions the label 20 to 30 percent below collections like D&G or Marc by Marc Jacobs - placing the collection at the affordable end of hip.

Cacharel is still not a megabrand, but its sales aren't to be scoffed at either - some $45 million for the current year.

In an age of globalization and rotten business ethics, its instructive to recall that, if anything, the company paid a steep price for loyalty to its local workforce, keeping five manufacturing plants busy in France long after others had fled to less costly labor markets.

Now, production is diversified between Italy, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.

Administration, warehousing and the financial department are still in Nimes, while the creative team, advertising, communications and Jean Bousquet himself have headquarters in Paris between La Madeleine and Printemps.

Future projects in the pipeline include a projected launch of Gloria, the sixth and latest Cacharel scent through its licensing agreement with L'Oreal.

The house is also mulling book launch parties in late January in New York and late February in LA to unveil a history of the house, produced by French publisher Assouline.

And Guillaume is already dreaming of opening of stores in Soho and Miami, where Cacharel once had a store in Bal Harbor two decades ago.

"This time we'd have to be in South Beach. It has the right youthful feel," stressed Guillaume.

He should know; the trilingual young executive has a degree in international relations from Florida International University.

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