Kookai
French fashion label

Kookai is a women's fashion label founded in Paris, France in 1983 by Jean-Lou Tepper, Jacques Nataf and Philippe de Hesdin. It has a simple philosophy: "to supply women with fashion forward apparel for their wardrobes at accessible prices". Kookai was launched in Australia in 1992 by its Australian licensees, Robert Cromb and Danielle Vagner. In 2017, Robert Cromb and Danielle Vagner acquired the European Kookai business from the Vivarte Group to create one global, unified brand.
Today, Kookai has over 200 stores throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Its clothing line is generally characterised as Parisian-infused chic.
Kookai owns its own manufacturing facilities in Fiji and Sri Lanka where a majority of the collection for the Southern Hemisphere is produced.
Ethical behaviour
In 1996, Kookaï joined the Vivarte Group and subsequently signed an Ethical Charter to ensure that the products sold in Kookaï stores are manufactured in ethical conditions. The label has maintained an ethical image through other affiliations. Affiliations include the UNICEF "Frimousses" operation that raises money to give children in need the opportunity to receive vaccinations.
The public source identifies “Kookai” as french fashion label. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kookai, French and fashion.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1783759. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1983, 1992, 2017 and 1996.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kookai” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.