Turkey fashion and apparel. Lc waikiki Although Lc waikiki is known as a Turkish brand, its origin is France. Georges Amouyal who was designer and his partner are the founders of this brand

Turkey fashion and apparel. LC Waikiki
Although LC Waikiki is known as a Turkish brand, its origin is France. Georges Amouyal who was designer and his partner are the founders of this brand. LC Waikiki means Waikiki is a popular beach name and LC: Les Copains means friends in French. Later, in 1997, Georges Amouyal retained a small 7% share and bought the rest from Tema Tekstil, belonging to Taha Group, and changed its name to LC Waikiki Retailing Service. The brand was born in France but reached its current level in Istanbul. LC Waikiki, which started opening its own stores in 2000, has become a prominent retail brand throughout Turkey. In the same year, the XSIDE brand was created for teenagers over 15 years old. In 2009, LC Waikiki opened its first branch in Romaina. Nowadays, every 5 days, LC Waikiki op ens its new store somewhere in the world. By 2011, the theme group changed the company name back to LC Waikiki Retailing Services Pre Ltd and became the leader of the Turkish-ready-to-wear section. Over the years, she won another award from Most Loved Fashion and Retail Company in 2013. LC Waikiki announced the opening of its 100th overseas store in Mostar in 2014, and announced that in 2023 it will be touring the Most Successful ready-made clothing brand trio across Europe. Two major changes took place in 2016-2017. In 2016, LC Waikiki launched a new category of its own, which was Home Textile products, and launched under the name LCW Home. In 2017, LC Waikiki started introducing fewer stores in 2 countries, namely Indonesia and Kenya. It said the company would expand to Sub Saharan Africa and South East Asia. LC Waikiki won 3 awards with the LCW Sense by the world’s independent award organization Mercury Excellence Awards, the first program programmed for visually impaired people in the world. Turkey’s national ambassador, LC Waikiki, has opened 1,000 stores in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, as part of a worldwide mission under the slogan “Everyone has the right to dress well”. It is provided more information about branches history because these branches helped most in during the pandemic.
Here are main challenges that Turkey clothing sector faced in pandemic: unemployment and declines in the market of domestic and export
During the pandemic, the textile and clothing industry, one of the main sectors of the Turkish economy, suffered the most. Textile and manufacturing fell from 20% to 14%, respectively, in February after the official arrival of the coronavirus in Turkey, according to the Turkish Statistical University, while the overall decline in the industry was 7.5%. These results were not expected to improve until June. After 11 outbreaks of caronavirus in Turkey, the amount of money spent on clothing according to the central bank's hybrid decreased by 64%. The main reason for this was the focus of the population on the purchase of food and health care, cleaning products. The increase in the domestic market was reflected in the decline in exports. The clothing sector, which accounts for 15% of Turkey's exports, is equal to car exports. In January and February, Turkey sold $ 3 billion worth of goods to foreign markets, but this figure fell to 40% in May and April. Meanwhile, some clothing stores have even been forced to close, for example Boyner and Blue. Shops reopened in Turkey on May 11 with the movement of shopping malls, a move that could have pleased tenants but worried sellers. The reason for this was that the domestic market was still sluggish and tourists had not returned. While 52 million tourists visited Turkey last year, the sharp decline in the number of tourists in the Pandemic was bound to have a significant impact on domestic trade.
Demand for consumer clothing fell sharply during the pandemic, leading to thousands of people losing their jobs not only in Turkey but throughout Central Asia. In addition, fiber and cotton suppliers and all sectors involved in the process suffered equally. In Istanbul, 68% of Turkish clothing is produced and 49% of workers are employed in the clothing sector. Istanbul is a wholesale and retail center with a capacity of 100,000 employees. The onset of the pandemic had a serious impact on employment. The majority of the unemployed are unregistered workers, such as refugees and illegal immigrants, who live on very low wages.
During the pandemic, LC Waikiki changed his mission, "everybody deserves to dress well," to a new mission, "everyone has the right to be good." LC Waikiki has been a great help in mask production in the fight against the pandemic. Without any profit, LC Waikiki took all the necessary measures and produced 40 million masks a week and delivered them to the right places. From the day the “everyone has the right to be good” mission was set, LC Waikiki fashion has used every opportunity to achieve healthy days together as a retail brand. LC Waikiki, which provided 2.5 million masks free of charge to meet the need for masks since the epidemic began, has signed more than 100 contracts with businesses in need of masks and provided 10,000 jobs. LC Waikiki distributed the masks to the public with this post “From the bottom of our hearts, we thank our hundreds of producers and tens of thousands of devoted clothing workers, who have supported this mobilization. We believe with all our heart that we will survive these days since we are joining hands”. With these all actions, LC Waikiki helped to reduce unemployment in Turkey
Unlike its competitors, the LC Waikiki grew and developed in the Pandemic. The main reason for this was that LC Waikiki had overseas branches. At that time, LC Waikiki continued to operate in more than 500 branches around the world. “We benefited from the highest efficiency from our stores abroad,” said Vahap Kupcuk, chairman of LC Waikiki, confirming the above statement. The pandemic has prompted the launch of new strategies for the international retail sector. LC Waikiki did the opposite when the US-based company GAP closed its store in Europe and H&M reduced the number of popular brand stores. As a result, they achieved the highest sales revenue. In detail, LC Waikiki, which opened its 1,000th store in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, has increased the number of stores abroad to 537. LC Waikiki has announced that it plans to increase the number of overseas branches to 550 by the end of 2020.
As mentioned earlier, LC Waikiki has developed a new strategy in the pandemic LCW Baby brand has opened new logos and stores for a new direction without the use of ready-made stores. The first store opened in Istanbul and LCW Baby brandy focused on underwear, home and shoes. They tried to create all the comforts for baby and mother by paying attention to detail in the products produced for babies. For example baby pajamas are extended by 4 cm and developed self-stocking dresses and front buttoned pajamas. This allowed the mother to take off her clothes without waking the baby. Kucuk said they want to produce "the healthiest material for babies at functional and affordable prices." In addition to selling only clothing, LC Waikiki has announced plans to sell baby food in 2021. LC Waikiki has opened a new line of LCW Home stores for underwear and home categories as people spend more time at home during the pandemic. These were initially launched with 25 stores in Ukraine, Jordan and Greece, and then to 20 more countries.
Reference list:
Association, I., 2022. Turkish clothing and textile sector looks towards a diversified client base beyond Covid-19. [online] Just Style. Available at: [Accessed 9 April 2022].
Al-Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East. 2022. COVID-19 ravages Turkey’s vital clothing, textile industry. [online] Available at: [Accessed 9 April 2022].


SABAH, D., 2022. Major Turkish clothing retailer LCW produces 40M masks weekly. [online] Daily Sabah. Available at: [Accessed 9 April 2022].

Corporate.lcwaikiki.com. 2022. [online] Available at: [Accessed 3 April 2022].
Corporate.lcwaikiki.com. 2022. [online] Available at: [Accessed 3 April 2022].
Corporate.lcwaikiki.com. 2022. [online] Available at: [Accessed 9 April 2022].