Paris label Coperni to close after dispute with its distributor

Coperni, the Paris fashion label, is closing. Its founders, Arnaud Vaillant and Sébastien Meyer, announced the decision in a personal statement emailed to press and retailers. WWD reported the announcement on 4 November.

The closure follows a long dispute with Tomorrow London Group. That company has been Coperni's majority shareholder and its exclusive distributor, the business that handled sales of its products to shops, since 2019.

Vaillant said the label came under heavy financial pressure after Tomorrow stopped paying sums it owed to partners and suppliers for several months. He made that claim in the founders' statement.

The strain led to formal court proceedings. On 11 June, a Paris commercial court granted Coperni's request for court protection, placing the brand into receivership. Receivership is a court-supervised process for companies that cannot pay their debts, and it gives them time to restructure or sell. Coperni's founders were seeking to separate the brand from Tomorrow during that process.

The dispute was also visible on the catwalk calendar. In March, Coperni withdrew from Paris Fashion Week, and it did not show its fall 2026 collection there. Paris Fashion Week is one of the four main showing weeks in the fashion calendar, alongside New York, London and Milan.

Ownership of Tomorrow changed in the same month. In March, Progetto 11, the holding company of the e-commerce platform The Level Group, acquired Tomorrow. The deal also saw earlier shareholders leave, including founder and chief executive Stefano Martinetto and Three Hills Capital Partners.

Vogue reported that Coperni SAS, the company that runs the label, has ceased operations following its conflict with Tomorrow. The founders' statement did not set out what happens to the label's remaining debts, staff or stock.