competition from imports

Troubles at Dior's parent company, Boussac, would visit drastic change on the maison de couture in the 1980s.Chanel Flap The roots of the problems reached back to the 1970s. Still owned and led by its octogenarian founder (known as "King Cotton" in his home nation), Group Boussac had by this time grown to encompass 65 textile mills and 17,000 employees. Classic Chanel Despite its size, Chanel Cambon several imperatives of the maturing industry--consolidation, competition from imports, the shift to synthetics--had knocked Boussac from the top of France's fabric heap to a struggling number five by 1971.