Platovsky founded Tricots St. Raphael, a menswear company that manufactures sweaters, mostly out of Uruguay, in 1973. Growing up with a family in the textile industry in Belgium, Cecile was very familiar with fashion at a young age, and in a 2009 interview she said, "I have always wanted to design clothes" since I was young. Cecile said she wanted to "make sweaters for traditional people that wanted to be fashionable". When Cecile decided to start Tricots, she felt that Uruguay was the place to start, because they were well known for being a wool producing country, and "I figured if they produce wool, there must be factories". When she arrived in Montevideo, she knew one name through a relative and asked if he would like to manufacture menswear. When he agreed, the ecstatic Cecile began Tricots. While in Uruguay, Cecile stayed in the resort town of Punte del Este. She was so taken with the country and the places she had been that she named her company after her favorite hotel in Montevideo, The Hotel St. Raphael. She added "Tricots" which means "knitwear" in French.
After designing her first line, she brought a few samples to a gentlemen she had met in New York. When he looked at the samples he said, "these are great, you should take part in a menswear fashion show next week". In her first day, she sold 8,000 sweaters. Later she tells Snyder, "I had a feeling that someone was watching over me."
Later that year, she received a call from the Neiman Marcus seller in Paris, he said "I cannot come to New York, but heard great things about your line and would love to see it, can you come and meet me in Dallas?" This was well before Tricots had a travel budget, so Cecile took the gamble and flew down to Dallas. On the spot Neiman Marcus made an order for $80,000 and put Tricots on the map. Tricots continued to grow and began selling to many better retail stores such as, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord and Taylor.
In an interview discussing her career she said:
"I worked very hard for 32 years, six days a week, but looking back I had a ball"
As the company grew, so did potential buyers, and in December 2000, Tricots was purchased by Salant Corp. Platovsky continued to run the division.[5] After 32 years in the business, Platovsky stepped down from the helm in July 2004.
