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TWST: What differentiates your products from the products of Olympia and the private label and Dim and Well? Can you characterise what your advantages are?

Mr. Lasnier: This is a very good question, because the biggest problem in our market is to find differentiation as far as the brand and product are concerned. Firstly, and this is quite important for us, the Kindy brand has got the best brand recognition in the French market. Our brand recognition is at 26%, which is important as the second brand, Olympia, is at 6%. It is an official institute called IFOP who did this survey. This is a strength of the Kindy brand. The second point is that for one-and-a-half years Joel and I have been developing a strategy of innovation. If you take the 80s, as far as products were concerned, they were the years of intarsia technology - this is exactly what Burlington is producing. You know Burlington socks with coloured squares on the socks? This is called intarsia. So the 80s were intarsia years. The 90s have been years for a lot of colours on the socks because of the technology; so you can manufacture socks with 6 or 7 colours. This meant more creativity, more design. And what we feel, from 2000, is that it will develop into a new part of the market; this is a trend, what we call in France Texticament. So all the applications of textiles to design and market more comfort. I'll explain that: we have been marketing since September 99 several innovations like, for example, what we call anti-bacterial socks, which are woven with a yarn which is made up of a fibre which prevents bad smells. We have other innovations as well, to bring more comfort. This is a very big point in our strategy, that you won't buy socks only to wear something between your foot and your shoe and for colour; you will buy underwear and socks because they bring something to your health and to your comfort. The second innovation is what we call non-constricting products. When you wear a sock, at the top of the sock you have a kind of ring with lycra, and this constricts the leg. We now have a new process to prevent the socks from constricting the leg. This is quite good for ladies, but for men too. The third innovation is what we call self-massaging products. You take a sock, and the weaving technique we use to produce this sock allows to make a relaxing effect on the foot, so you can walk a lot. A good example is if you fly a lot of hours, you wear these socks and you will feel much better because you will feel that your feet and your legs are quite normal after the flight. All these products are designed to improve blood circulation in the leg. The fourth innovation is what we call a moisturising sock. This is a sock with a special treatment on the surface allowing that moisturising cream can give an impression of freshness on the foot. We can guarantee this moisturising effect for up to 5 washes.