The emblematic French brand DIM announced on Wednesday the relocation to France of almost all of its production of tights, until then partly carried out in Germany. Dim Brands International (DBI), the underwear group that owns Dim but also Playtex and the German brand Nur Die, repatriates the production of around 19 million pairs of Nur Die tights, hitherto manufactured in Schongau, in the south of Germany.
This site, which employed 90 people, has closed. Their manufacture will now be done on the site of Autun (Saône-et-Loire), the main unit and historical company of Dim which already produces around 60 million pairs of tights per year.
Famous “Low Sunday”
Thus, “more than 90% of the group’s footwear items will be knitted” in Autun, announced DBI, owned by the American private equity firm Regent LP “Our objective is to bring the Autun company back to profitability sufficient to be able to perpetuate its existence”, explained the president of DBI, François Riston, during a press briefing in Autun.
The additional production will be done with “more or less with the same workforce”, specified the boss. Autun employs 600 people, and a hundred temporary workers. The Autun site currently has unused capacity, the company says without further details. “The relocation will consolidate it. We want to saturate it,” Riston explained.
The future of this site, where the famous “Bas Dimanche” were created in the 1950s, which made the success of the company, has regularly aroused fears, in particular during its acquisition, in 2021, by the Regent fund. , based in California. The latter owns 500 companies worldwide, in the fields of technology, consumer products, industry and media. In clothing, it notably owns the brands Escada, La Senza, Club Monaco, etc.
First French underwear brand
Dim was founded in 1953. It was then a small hosiery company manufacturing chic and inexpensive stockings originally marketed under the “Bas Dimanche” brand. Having become a symbol of “Made in France”, it claims to be the leading French underwear brand.
The company had more than a thousand employees ten years ago before undergoing several changes of ownership. In 2014, Dim was sold to the American multinational Hanesbrand, which led to the loss of 265 jobs. Hanes had sold at the end of 2021 to Regent LP DBI made a turnover of 500 million euros last year.