Menswear brand Seagale has ambitious 2026 plans after pivotal year

Eleven years after its launch, French menswear brand Seagale is still going strong. 2025 was a pivotal year for the Toulon-based brand, which worked to consolidate its commercial and operational infrastructure, and generated a revenue of €6 million. Seagale, founded in 2014 by Bertrand Durand-Gasselin and Matthieu Rivory, is hoping to grow this figure to €8 million in 2026.

“In 2025, we worked on several not-so-visible but crucial projects: we launched a new, better-performing website, and we deployed new POS systems for our stores, new ERP solutions for our logistics, and new CRM tools to boost customer loyalty, so as to be able to smoothly scale up the business,” said Durand-Gasselin.

Direct retail a strategic mainstay for Seagale

In 2025, Seagale also strengthened in-store customer service, placing more emphasis on the role of its retail staff as product experts, spending more time on advising customers, assisting with fittings, and promoting a free alteration service for trousers. 

Seagale, distinctive for its high-performance, minimalist outfits, sells only through the direct retail channel, via its e-shop and four monobrand stores. The first store was opened in Toulon, followed by one in Paris in 2021, and by stores in Nice and Lyon in 2024. The latter two have made successful inroads with their clientèle: the Lyon store is appreciated by urban professionals who like Seagale’s versatile clothes, while the Nice clientèle is attracted by lifestyle and travel items, suited to both tourists and locals.

New stores planned in 2026

Through its own stores, Seagale is able to offer good value for money for items made with “increasingly expensive” high-tech materials, while keeping in close touch with its community. In 2026, the brand is planning to open one or two new stores, “perhaps a second one in Paris, but we’re also looking around Bordeaux and Toulouse,” said Durand-Gasselin.

“We have everything we need to make [2026] a successful year,” said Durand-Gasselin, adding that “what makes us especially proud is that we’re constantly growing while remaining a profitable, 100% self-financed company. This rare freedom allows us to build the brand exactly as we wish.” For the time being, Seagale has about 30 employees, between the headquarters and warehouse in Toulon and the stores’ staff.

Constant investment in textile innovation

Seagale has made a name for itself with clothes suitable for sporting activity, the office, and urban outings, and has always made innovation one of its bywords. The brand has developed fabrics for specific uses, like the 140g Performance Merino jersey, a blend of merino wool and Cordura, and the Active Stretch fabric, used to make wrinkle-free, elasticated shirts.

Seagale is also expanding its collaborative efforts to develop exclusive fabrics, for example high-performance merino wool-nylon blends, Cordura, high-tech yarns, and specific knitwear, sourcing these fabrics chiefly in France, Spain and Italy. The garments are produced in Lithuania and Tunisia.

Seagale’s innovation drive extends beyond textiles. Since the end of 2024, the brand has started utilising AI solutions, notably in advertising.

“We’re using AI as a tool, not as an end in itself. We have two goals: increasing our agility, and finding ways to better illustrate technical concepts that are sometimes hard to showcase with classic [communication] formats,” said Durand-Gasselin. He indicated that Seagale is now relying on a combination of real pictures and AI-generated images.