Charlotte Russe

Company History

Founded in 1975, the first Charlotte Russe store was opened in Carlsbad, California. Focused on women ranging from their teens to early twenties, the store offered customers access to major fashion trends at value-oriented prices. During the subsequent 20 years, Charlotte Russe grew to become a 35-store chain concentrated in Southern California with annual sales of $70 million. Since that time, the Company has expanded significantly, approaching 500 stores and $900 million in sales at the end of fiscal 2008.

Contact Us

Charlotte Russe Holding Inc.
575 Florida St.
San Francisco, CA 94110

Phone (415) 820-6400
Toll Free (877) 266-9327
Store Support - CustomerService@CharlotteRusse.com

Charlotte Russe Today

Charlotte Russe is a growing, mall-based specialty retailer of fashionable, value-priced apparel and accessories. We are focused on providing exciting, fashion-forward merchandise that appeals to customers across age and socioeconomic boundaries, with a core emphasis on the lifestyle trends of young women in their teens and twenties. Our stores offer merchandise at value-oriented prices and the majority of our merchandise is sold under our proprietary Charlotte Russe labels, including Charlotte Russe, Refuge and blu Chic. The remainder of our merchandise consists of nationally-recognized brands popular with our customers. As of September 27, 2008, Charlotte Russe operated 487 stores throughout 45 states and Puerto Rico.

In 2007, our Board of Directors initiated a comprehensive review of strategy and operations and determined — with the assistance of experienced third-party retail consultants — that significant changes were necessary to improve operational performance and build greater value for stockholders. Based on this review, our Board moved aggressively to develop a strategic plan aimed at transforming Charlotte Russe into a high-performing, top-tier specialty retailer.

Contact

PR@charlotterusse.com

We love what we do at Charlotte Russe, Inc. Our employees are fun, dedicated people working in areas from merchandising to distribution. If you love fashion and are driven to be the best, come join us!

Visit our Career Opportunities section: Search Jobs Now!

LAST UPDATED 12/21/11

Ethical Supply Chain Practices and Transparency

As a condition of doing business with our company, Charlotte Russe requires all vendors and buying agents that we contract with to ensure that the products they agree to produce for us are made and delivered in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. Our vendors and buying agents are also required to abide by Charlotte Russe’s own specific requirements, even if they go above and beyond what’s required by any applicable law.

We recognize that it is not realistic to expect that our vendors are in 100% compliance with 100% of all laws and 100% of all our requirements, 100% of the time. We also know that if our policy were to simply sever a vendor relationship in the face of any violation, this would more often than not harm the lives of factory workers and cause vendors to actively hide issues from us rather than engage in open and productive dialogue. Therefore, when we identify areas of non-compliance, our goal is to work with our vendors to help resolve issues, improve compliance and promote better working conditions. That said, we have a zero tolerance policy for extreme violations such as the use of child labor, forced labor, or human trafficking and any such violation would result in termination of our business relationship with the offending vendor.

California Transparency Supply Chains Act. Charlotte Russe respects internationally recognized human rights standards and believes that no business should ever be complicit in any human rights abuses. Pursuant to the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, Charlotte Russe (along with all other retailers and manufacturers with annual sales in excess of $100 million who do business in California) is required as of January 1, 2012 to publicly report on the efforts we are undertaking to ensure that our products are made without the use of slavery or human trafficking. Click here to read about Charlotte Russe’s efforts.

The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, S.B. 657, requires retailers and manufacturers that do business in California and have in excess of $100 million in annual sales to state to what extent, if any, they are undertaking efforts to mitigate the risk of human trafficking and slavery in their supply chains. The following provides a summary of Charlotte Russe’s efforts.

All vendors we contract with currently sign an acknowledgment that they are in compliance with all local and international laws, rules and regulations, including but not limited to laws relating to the employment conditions of their respective employees such as: (a) wage and hour, labor and child labor; (b) health and safety; (c) labor and workers’ rights and practices; (d) discrimination; and (e) environmental laws and regulations.

We are updating our certification and intend to implement a revised version for all vendors and buying agents in Q1 of 2012. Our updated certification will require vendors to certify that (1) all goods (including all materials incorporated therein) have been produced and delivered in full compliance with all applicable local and international laws, rules and regulations, including but not limited to those relating to wage and hour, labor and child labor, forced labor, slavery and human trafficking, health and safety, labor and workers’ rights and practices, discrimination, environmental, and customs/trade, as well as with all Charlotte Russe standards and requirements, including as set forth in its Vendor Handbook, purchase order terms and conditions and Code of Vendor Conduct; and (2) it has an effective compliance program in place for itself and all of its owned and contracted suppliers and factories to ensure all goods are produced in full compliance with all such laws and requirements, including all that pertain to the prevention of human trafficking and slavery.

Charlotte Russe has recently engaged a third party, independent consulting and auditing firm to assist us in reviewing, updating and enforcing our standards for compliance and to help us ensure our vendors abide by all laws and requirements, including those that prohibit the use of slavery or human trafficking. We are also currently evaluating the extent to which our vendors have previously been subject to independent audits and certified by independent auditing firms. We anticipate that additional independent audits will be undertaken in 2012 with identified vendors based on our evaluation of several criteria, including the annual dollar volume of goods placed with the vendor, the vendor’s compliance record to date, and the existence of other third party certifications, among other factors.

Charlotte Russe’s internal compliance team has conducted a risk assessment of our supply chain sourcing countries specific to human trafficking and slavery by utilizing advisories published by the US Department of State, the US Department of Labor and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In addition, we are in the process of verifying that each vendor in our database does not appear on any US Department of State or US Department of Labor lists which identify known violators. Our efforts to assess and mitigate these risks are ongoing. As noted above, Charlotte Russe has also recently retained an independent consulting and auditing firm to advise us generally on our supply chain policies and practices and to help us with our mitigation and enforcement efforts going forward. As part of this engagement, and in addition to our ongoing internal efforts to educate our employees on ethical supply chain practices, the firm will assist us with the development of a more formalized training program for all employees responsible for supply chain management and compliance. We plan to roll out this training to all such employees by no later than the end of Q1 of 2012.

Charlotte Russe has a Code of Business Conduct and Ethics which requires all employees, directors and officers to, among other things, comply at all times with all laws, rules and regulations applicable to the company or its operations. Moreover, all employees have a duty to report any known or suspected violation of the Code, including any violation of the laws, rules regulations or policies that apply to the Company. Failure to abide by our Code can result in disciplinary action up to and including termination. In addition to its existing requirements applicable to its vendors, Charlotte Russe is developing a new Code of Vendor Conduct (“COVC”) that will specifically reference and prohibit the use of slavery and human trafficking. We plan to incorporate the COVC into our Vendor Handbook and roll it out in Q1 of 2012. All vendors will be required to abide by the COVC as condition of doing business with Charlotte Russe.