Ami Paris continues to grow, targets €300 million for 2023
Nicola Mira
AmiAlexandre MattiussiParis Fashion Week
Ami Paris’s ambitious objective was revealed by Nicolas Santi-Weil, the label’s CEO for the past 10 years, in an interview to Italian business daily MF FashionFashionNetwork.com
Santi-Weil’s strategy hinges on managing the label’s e-shop internally, and on prioritising store openings outside the French domestic market. Ami Paris recently left its Marais headquarters and moved to more spacious premises on rue Etienne-Marcel, on the corner with place des Victoires. The label currently employs 500 people. It operates 58 monobrand stores, and is also distributed via 700 independent retailers in over 120 countries, compared to 8 stores and 350 retailers in 2019. Ami Paris is available at most Parisian department stores, but has only two monobrand boutiques in the French capital, one on rue d’Alger, in the Saint-Honoré district, and the other on boulevard Beaumarchais.
Ami Paris’s retail presence is mostly concentrated abroad, notably in Asia, where it operates some 40 stores, 15 of them in Japan and 12 in South Korea. China, its main Asian market, is the country where the label has most expanded its presence, now consisting of 17 stores. Ami Paris entered the Chinese market by opening a first boutique in 2016. In 2021, its expansion in the country accelerated, after Shanghai-based venture capital firm Sequoia
A few months ago, a new investor, London-based firm Felix Capital, became a shareholder in Ami Paris, as Santi-Weil stated in his interview. Santi-Weil himself bought a stake in Ami Paris when he joined the company in 2013. The label did not wish to disclose further details about its shareholders.
Felix Capital is a venture capital firm that was founded in 2015 by former French merchant banker Frédéric Court. Santi-Weil is one of Felix Capital’s original shareholders. The firm is mostly interested in tech start-ups but is also active in the fashion sector, having notably invested in Farfetch
