Alexandre Vauthier has departed the fashion house he founded just seven months after his brand was acquired by Californian e-tailer Revolve.

A friend close to the designer confirmed his departure, which comes 15 years after Vauthier launched his brand in Paris.

The house had been in financial difficulties since 2021, when the Commercial Court of Paris initiated a judicial administration procedure. The company subsequently went into receivership in February 2024.

As a result, the house sought buyers for several years, a process overseen by the Commercial Court in a bidding process. That ended last June when Revolve, based in Cerritos, California, acquired the Paris-based house.

Revolve declined any comment on Vauthier’s leaving, though the source said the couturier departed with several members of his design team.

When buying the house, Revolve already knew Vauthier well, having sold more than $4 million worth of Alexandre Vauthier products to its customers.

Describing itself as “a next-generation fashion site for Generation Y and Generation Z consumers,” Revolve was founded in 2003 by Mike Karanikolas and Michael Mente. When Revolve acquired control via a French holding named L.A. Rive Droite, founder Vauthier retained only 20% of the capital.

As part of the deal, Revolve promised to invest a total of €6 million in the house of Alexandre Vauthier, whose purchase price was just €250,000. Revolve further promised to “perpetuate the business of the Paris-based company” and “build a global brand” by leveraging its e-commerce platform, marketing capabilities, and pre-existing customer base and by taking “advantage of Revolve’s technological infrastructure” and its community of 2.6 million international customers.

Born in Agen in southwest France, Vauthier is known as a highly skilled couturier who honed his craft as a senior designer at Thierry Mugler before joining Jean-Paul Gaultier as design director of its couture collections for eight years. He debuted his first eponymous collection in 2009 and subsequently became an official haute couture house in 2014. He has been listed on the official calendar of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode for the past decade.

Famed for his bravura sense of French high-octane glamour, Vauthier went on to dress Madonna, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Fanny Ardant, and Monica Bellucci.

He left his house just three months after staging a haute couture presentation in January during the most recent couture season in Paris. Vauthier seemed in top form, presenting his Spring-Summer 2025 collection in the sumptuous salons of the Hôtel de la Monnaie, focusing on his tailoring expertise in a collection that featured three-piece suits, as well as jackets, almost baggy pants slipped into heeled ankle boots, and draped dresses revealing one shoulder or the back.

Based in an elegant building opposite the Palais de Tokyo in the 16th arrondissement, the Vauthier couture house employed some 30 people. In the most recent filing, the brand achieved a turnover of €12.7 million in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, according to accounts filed with the Commercial Court of Paris.

The house’s women’s ready-to-wear and haute couture collections, leather goods, and shoes were sold via its website, as well as through its network of multi-brand retailers such as the Neiman Marcus chain in the United States, the flagship store of Mytheresa in Munich, and the Parisian boutique Biondini located in a gallery on the Champs-Élysées.

Revolve boasts around $1 billion annual sales and owns a portfolio of around twenty brands through Alliance Apparel, which it acquired in 2014.

Both ASOS and fashion e-tail peer Boohoo/Debenhams have been planning to close their US distribution centres (DCs) as part of their turnaround drives and it seems there’s no change to their intentions despite the current tariff carnage.

The two companies confirmed their decisions in response to a question from City AM.

The imposition of higher tariffs on goods imported into the US and the closing of tariff-free loopholes for low-cost goods means both companies’ exports to the country will attract duties. That said, even with local DCs, if the items are manufactured in other countries, they would still incur new taxes.

ASOS said in January that it’s closing its Atlanta, Georgia DC in the second half of the year and will serve US consumers from its automated fulfilment centre in Barnsley, Yorkshire, although there will also be a “smaller, more flexible local US site,” it said.

Meanwhile Boohoo/Debenhams had last autumn said it planned to stop fulfilling US orders from its Pennsylvania DC and would move them to its own automated DC in Sheffield, which is also in Yorkshire.

The moves would cut both firms’ costs and allow them to offer the wider variety of products that are available via their UK bases.