PARIS — This should have been Sonia Rykiel’s moment.

It was, after all, a brand founded by a woman half a century ago. A brand practically synonymous with female liberation and empowerment through clothes. A brand so embedded in the history of French women that a year ago Mayor Anne Hidalgo inaugurated the Allée Sonia Rykiel — the city’s first street named for any fashion designer . A brand, in other words, practically made for a time when women everywhere are demanding their due and seizing the lead.

And yet, this past April, the house of Sonia Rykiel went into receivership and in July, liquidation.

“Until the very last month, the C.E.O. and human resources were looking to save the house, and everybody felt it could be saved,” said an executive , who asked not to be identified because of the company’s nondisclosure agreement. “It’s hard to understand that 50 years of history could be flushed down the toilet. It’s one thing if it was a mess and nobody cared.” But, he said, everyone there had been working tirelessly trying to save it.

Image Mayor Anne Hidalgo, left, and Nathalie Rykiel at the celebration of the naming of Allée Sonia Rykiel in 2018 in Paris. Credit... Dominique Charriau/WireImage

So what happened?

Former Rykiel executives blame, variously: bad artistic decisions; corporate micromanaging; technological myopia; disengaged, faraway investors and a lack of due diligence when Chinese investors bought a majority stake in the company in 2012. The answer is probably a combination of all those reasons — as well as bad timing.