Farm Rio amps North American growth, punctuated with new Brooklyn store

It’s easy for the brand Farm Rio to conjure an image of a ranch full of bikini-clad farmers. The reality, though, is the boho-vibes company, which was started in 1997 by Katia Barros and Marcello Bastos, gets its name from the easy-going cool street in the Ipanema neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro called Rua Farme de Amoedo. As the brand heads into its 28th year in 2025, it’s clear that the U.S. is where the brand is accelerating growth the most.

FashionNetwork.com spoke with CEO Fabio Barreto about the brand’s new Brooklyn store, which opened in late October, and its plans for the U.S. market.

Speaking over Zoom, Barreto said the “fourth largest city in the U.S., Brooklyn” is its largest base. (To be fair, Brooklyn is a borough of New York and not a separate city, but it would rank fourth in size after New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago if it were.)

“Brooklyn’s our number one city in looking at our e-commerce sales. We have been looking for a space for a while,” he said, adding the brand’s first U.S. store in Soho runs a close second. The location at 65 North 6th Street sits comfortably next to other trendy spots—a Patagonia store, Avocado Mattress, Brooklinen, and the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

On the call, the CEO confirmed plans for three more East Coast locations to arrive within the next six months: one on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, another in Washington DC, and a third in the Hamptons, for which he said will have an extraordinary opening planned.

“We launched the first U.S. location in 2019, and our strategy from the beginning was to play in every single channel: retail, wholesale, and e-commerce. All three channels are part of today’s customer journey; they are very fluid. We want to be sure she finds Farm Rio everywhere she shops, whether it’s for a special event, an evening out, or a vacation,” he said.

Miami quickly followed Soho in December 2019, but naturally, the continued growth slowed during the pandemic. In 2021 and 2022, the brand tested several pop-ups in Los Angeles and eventually opened a permanent space in 2022 in Venice Beach. It added a second this past July on Melrose Avenue and is planning a third one at Fashion Island in the Orange County. Barreto is also said to be eyeing a Dallas location and an additional Miami location.

The coastal stores are bolstered by retail accounts at Nordstrom, Saks, Bloomingdale’s, and Anthropologie, with more than 100 smaller boutiques nationwide, which account for the large swath of the brand’s international distribution, along with e-commerce stores like Shopbop and Net-a-Porter.

This reach is why, according to Barreto, the U.S. stores are on track to pass $100 million in sales from the fourth quarter of 2023 to the fourth quarter of 2024. Sales outside Brazil and South America account for forty percent of the business, while the U.S. accounts for eighty percent of that figure.

“Everyone was just waiting to see the customer behavior regarding physical retail after the pandemic when interfacing digitally to shop. So that’s when we started looking and decided to expand the retail store footprint but diligently so that we don’t overexpose ourselves,” he continued.

Like each store, the Brooklyn is tailored to the existing architecture and locations.

“You’re not going to see two stores the same. In every store, you will see a special curation of art and furniture. If it’s an installation, we fly in Brazilian artists and artisans to do something special in that store. In Brooklyn, artwork that wraps around pillars was made by a Brazilian artist and is unique to that store,” Barreto explained.

There is also unique merch per store.

“We are developing a special print for each store. We designed a Brooklyn Farm Rio nature print, which you’ll only be able to shop in that store and which will be on T-shirts, shopping bags, and other giftable elements and souvenirs. We did that first for the London store; it was such a hit,” he said.

In truth, the U.S. stores’ styles are also unique to this market. “Everything that you see in the U.S. market, even in-store or wholesale or e-commerce, these products are designed specifically for the U.S. market. Well, I would say the northern hemisphere market and Europe, too. We have a whole design team working on this,” Barreto explained, adding, “That’s a decision that we made before we launched in the U.S. in strategizing how we would play in this market, our position, the type of product, who we hang with, what this customer expects from us then merging it with our purpose, the Brazilian elements, the print design teams based in Brazil, so it still comes from the same route, but it’s a team that is dedicated to the international market and catering the products to those customers are looking for such as a heavier fall-winter collection.”

In its 27 years, Farm Rio has cultivated a network of individual artisans who create its famous prints; they forecast trends well in advance to meet the demand and let the NGO-driven communities that thrive on these artisans plan for their livelihood. It’s an aspect of sustainability that the brand participates in, along with a tree-planting initiative.

“We can help them scale and make them know that we’re going to be here, not just curating one piece here and there. We’re always trying to establish long-term relationships,” he said.

That type of strong relationship with a supply chain will come in handy if new second-term Trump tariffs come as promised. While it’s too soon to tell, Barreto is already contemplating how Farm Rio will weather the changes.

“The worst part is just trying to understand what will happen. If they come, we will try to be flexible with our supply chain in Brazil, Turkey, India, Portugal, China, and Morocco. We have quite a few partners worldwide to manage production here and there. Ideally, those changes would help if we were given some time to plan with the suppliers because that’s something that we care about, too, which is our suppliers. We don’t want to leave anyone hanging; they also know what’s happening, and it’s not just us. So, the more time we have to plan, the better the decision will be to figure out how to absorb the cost instead of letting the customer feel the impact, especially in the short term. In our industry, we have some flexibility; other products won’t have that flexibility,” continued Barreto.

Daunting potential U.S. tariffs aside, Farm Rio now has other supply chain aspects to look forward to. Formally a part of Brazil’s most prominent fashion group, Grupo Soma, Farm Rio is now a part of Azzas, formed when Arezzo & Co, Brazil’s largest shoe conglomerate, acquired Grupo Soma.

Farm Rio will benefit from Azzas footwear supply chain. “Currently, we only offer a small line of leather goods. Next year, we’re increasing that to provide a redesign and a more extensive footwear assortment. This is good because when we look at our peers, they have a wider variety of offerings; 25% to 30% of their business comes from footwear and handbags, and we have less than 5%. It’s one of our biggest category growth plans to increase these offerings,” he said.

Rounding out the offerings will only strengthen its current positioning, and Barreto sees it as able to reach both sides of consumers: the aspirational fast-fashion shopper and the luxury shopper looking for more affordable quality items.

“We wanted a good price point for a very well-perceived value in terms of the product’s design. I think we nailed that. I think we’ve successfully achieved that positioning; that’s what we wanted.”