What Paris Reveals About Durable Consumer Brands

From fragrance to fashion to furniture, Paris reveals how durable consumer brands are actually built.I’m in Paris this week, and it’s impossible not to notice something.The most impressive consumer brands here aren’t chasing growth optics. They’re underwriting durability, margin, pricing power, and global portability, often through moves that look irrational if you only model store-level ROI.A minority stake in a Paris perfume house.A fashion brand handing out tea and cookies instead of discounts.A $100M retail “store” that makes no sense on a spreadsheet.These aren’t indulgences. They’re strategy.This week’s issue is about what Paris reveals about how real consumer brands compound, and why the most durable growth often looks slow, expensive, or inefficient right up until it isn’t.

Author

Fan Bi
January 26, 2026

Fragrance Is Becoming the New Handbag Category

L Catterton just took a minority stake in Ex Nihilo, a Paris-based high-perfumery brand.

This isn’t a beauty bet. It’s a luxury margin bet.

Ex Nihilo (the growth blueprint):

  • Revenue: ~$75M+

  • ASP: $250+

  • Moat: personalization (Osmologue robots) + cult scents like Fleur Narcotique

Creed (the end-state proof):

  • Acquired by Kering in 2023 for ~$3.8B

  • Revenue at sale: ~$270M

  • EBITDA: ~$160M (~50% margins)

  • ~14x revenue / 23x EBITDA

Why PE is pivoting to scent:

  • Invisible signaling in a Quiet Luxury era

  • Inventory efficiency (high value-to-weight, minimal returns)

  • Global portability (the same bottle sells in Paris, Shanghai, Dubai)

Luxury fragrance is doing what handbags did a decade ago — without the markdown risk.

Signal: This is one of the last luxury categories where margins still expand with scale.

Sézane Shows What “Retail as Marketing” Actually Means

I walked past a Sézane store this week. Line down the block. Packed inside.

While waiting, I was handed a herbal orange tea and a hazelnut cookie.

No rush. No upsell. No discounting.

Sézane basics:

  • Founded: 2013, by Morgane Sézalory

  • Revenue: $300M+, profitable, bootstrapped

  • Model: DTC-first, minimal wholesale

What actually matters:

1) Drops as inventory control, not hype
Limited collections + “essential” restocks → high full-price sell-through.
Markdowns are cleared via Archives events that feel like moments, not margin damage.

2) Stores as brand infrastructure
Sézane’s stores are L’Appartements, designed like Parisian homes.
Cafés, books, stationery. Experience over transaction.

3) Slow fashion, credibly executed
B-Corp certified. Real programs. No greenwashing.

Yes, I left with the Amore Caffè Crème hat.

Signal: Sézane proves that restraint, not speed, is the real luxury moat.

Restoration Hardware’s Paris Store Isn’t a Store

I genuinely stopped in my tracks walking past Restoration Hardware on the Champs-Élysées.

This isn’t retail. It’s a $100M brand asset.

The math:

  • Building acquired: ~2018

  • Fully opened: 2023

  • All-in cost: $100M+ (RH’s most expensive build ever)

On-site economics:

  • Showroom sales: ~$45M/year

  • Rooftop restaurant + wine bar: ~$12M/year

  • Payback on a traditional retail model: 20+ years

Which tells you everything.

RH isn’t underwriting store-level ROI. They’re underwriting:

  • European brand re-rating

  • Continent-wide halo effects

  • Trade + contract demand (hotels, developers, designers)

For a $4B+ market-cap brand, this isn’t indulgence. It’s long-dated brand capex.

Signal: The best brands invest where the spreadsheet looks worst, because the payoff isn’t local.

🎙 The Podcast Lesson: Durable Growth Is Built in the Unsexy Layers

My conversation with Greg Hayes, Co-Founder & CEO of Branch, was one of the cleanest examples of how real growth compounds in capital-intensive consumer.

Key takeaways:

  • Gross margin is the unlock
    Branch improved GM by ~35% in ~2 years through in-house design, hero SKUs, packaging discipline, and supply-chain work.

  • Forecasting = a hidden funding round
    Better demand planning freed cash from inventory and warehousing without raising capital.

  • Channel diversification without single-point risk
    DTC, B2B, wholesale (West Elm), Amazon, slower, but far more durable.

  • Product expansion lifted AOV ~40%
    Bundles turned DTC buyers into six-figure B2B customers.

  • Discipline over easy capital
    Branch chose margin and efficiency over raising $30–50M to juice topline.

Signal: Durable growth is operational before it’s financial.

🎧 Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify.

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Deal Alert: Off-market opportunity in personal care:

A premium, performance-led brand doing ~$1M in revenue with 75%+ gross margins is exploring a sale. Positioned squarely in masstige, unisex fragrance, and spray deodorant, all categories with strong secular tailwinds.

The business is lean, highly reviewed (2,000+ five-star reviews), and under-scaled across paid marketing, Amazon, wholesale, and product extensions. Interesting platform for a buyer who knows how to pour fuel on a clean core.

Strong fit for operators or platform buyers looking for a capital-efficient growth asset.

Email: fan [at] thehedgehogcompany.com

That’s it for this week.
If you liked this issue, forward to a friend who obsesses over brand strategy, capital flows, or exit timing.

In the Money – following the flow of capital in consumer

P.S. We love talking to brands interested in exiting in the next 3-18 months. If you know of any brands interested in exiting, or any firms trying to help port cos manage turnarounds, we'd love to share a POV.

fan [at] thehedgehogcompany.com