diff --git a/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py b/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
index aae654d36802..662423324e74 100644
--- a/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
+++ b/lib/matplotlib/font_manager.py
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 found.
 """
 from __future__ import absolute_import, division, print_function, unicode_literals
+import sys
 
 import six
 from six.moves import cPickle as pickle
@@ -276,7 +277,7 @@ def get_fontconfig_fonts(fontext='ttf'):
         return fontfiles
 
     if pipe.returncode == 0:
-        output = str(output)
+        output = six.text_type(output, sys.getfilesystemencoding())
         for line in output.split('\n'):
             fname = line.split(':')[0]
             if (os.path.splitext(fname)[1][1:] in fontext and