French Brand Sœur Opens Its Biggest Store Yet in Milan

MILAN — French brand Sœur has found its first home in Italy — a roomy one at that.

The label has unveiled its newest retail unit in Milan’s central Via Orefici, a strategic street that connects the heart of the city and its landmark Duomo cathedral to Piazza Cordusio, which groups the likes of Starbucks, Uniqlo and Arket as well as the recently opened Palazzo Cordusio Gran Meliá hotel.

Sitting on a corner near the likes of Max Mara and opposite hip retailer End, the Sœur store covers 2,690 square feet over three floors, and carries the brand’s women’s and accessories collections as well as its recently launched Frère capsule, its first foray into menswear.

The scale of the unit signals the company’s commitment to the market, considering Sœur stores are on average 753 square feet in France while other international units go up to roughly 1,076 square feet. 

“We’ve been in Italy for a pretty long time actually, but through wholesale. This is our very first own store and it’s actually a worldwide flagship,” chief executive officer Freja Day told WWD ahead of the official opening on Thursday. 

The unit will bring the number of Sœur locations in Europe to 52, in cities such as London; Paris; Madrid, and Antwerp, Belgium. The brand also has shops-in-shop through a distributor in South Korea and overall is carried at 500 multibrand retailers, including in the likes of Milaura and LuisaViaRoma in Italy.

A stronger focus on the country could be foreseen given the investment the brand received from Style Capital last year, when the Milan-based private equity fund took an 80 percent stake in the label and added it to its portfolio that includes Zimmermann, MSGM, Re/Done, Forte_Forte and Autry, among others.

“[Style Capital] did add a new country to the map, because we didn’t actually have so much knowledge of the Italian market,” said Day, underscoring that so far most of the company’s interest was toward the U.K., Spain and the U.S. 

Day believes Sœur can find a place in the competitive Milanese fashion arena. “Our starting point is not necessarily an analysis of the consumer market of that country. We start with wholesale; if we’re selling well and see that the customer likes it, we give it a try,” she said. 

“Our starting point for the collections is always just the inspirations of our creative director, who’s also the founder of the company,” Day added, pointing to Domitille Brion, who established the brand with her sister Angélique in 2007. 

Sœur is known for its French styles of sophisticated yet casual “elevated basics,” available at the price point of around 300 euros for jackets and 500 euros for coats. “What we offer to the Italian market, but being very humble because it’s also our first store here, it’s just a style that is a bit more timeless, a bit quiet… So it’s more about the details on the pieces, the cuts, the materials and it’s the combination of it all with the affordable price,” said Day.

While mirroring the overall concept of other Sœur locations — hinged on light colors and minimal aesthetic mixing wood, travertine marble and brass elements — the store’s interior design has been adapted to the bigger scale by showcasing items in “an aerial way, with less things on the racks” and creating small spaces dedicated to families of product, like shoes and bags.

Although keeping a cautious approach, Day hinted this is the first of a bigger rollout in the country. “Officially, we’re waiting, but we’re very impatient as well. So we’re already looking at other opportunities,” said the executive. “I think there’s a lot of good cities in Italy: it’s like France, there’s a lot of cities with a lot of affluent tourists as well… So [we hope] to be able to open a few stores per year in Italy in the coming years, while growing wholesale because we really see it as complementary channels. Where I don’t see a very big potential for the moment is actually online, which is not very strong here.”

The executive said that in general, the plan is to open five to seven stores next year, targeting countries such as the U.K., Spain and Belgium, in addition to Italy, depending on the opportunities that might pop up. “We have a policy that we have to be profitable in every shop that we open, so not to open any boutiques on expensive streets just for marketing reasons. We’re too small to have non-profitable sources,” said Day. 

Yet the company is growing fast. Day projects total sales will reach 65 million euros in 2024, up 25 percent versus 2023, when revenues increased 37 percent compared to the previous year. 

She said the brand has been growing since COVID-19, when it managed to limit losses to an 8 percent decrease in sales, thanks to the advantage of having its digital transformation already set in motion. “Then when we came out of COVID-19, when the boom hit in France and in Europe, we were really ready to catch that opportunity. And while other brands had at that point started being a bit greedy raising their prices a lot, we didn’t do that and so we gained a lot of market share,” she said. 

The main mission going forward remains international expansion with an omnichannel mindset, “growing outside of France while maintaining our identity of being a very designer-driven company but with the speed of digital-native brands and with the operational retail excellence of affordable luxury,” said Day.

To be sure, key drivers of this year’s performance included growth online, propelled by markets such as the U.S., fast-growing and profitable as Sœur is not operating retail. 

Along with the U.K., France is the other top-performing market for the brand, accounting for 65 percent of total sales, driven by strong brand awareness, a loyal following and the label’s sustained commitment in knowing “how to talk to our historical customer.”

Another key driver of growth is the collections, said Day, underscoring how the company has been investing in heavily increasing the number of senior people in the design studio and reorganizing staff according to product families, with experts vertically dedicated to categories such as shirts and dresses or outerwear and pants. 

Pattern makers have been pivotal also in launching the Frère 20-piece capsule dropped last month. Day said the line has been a success marketing-wise, but it’s still serving as a test for the brand. “We see that men also shop differently, so we didn’t see that super strong initial boost that we would see with the collaboration with Leandra Cohen or K-Way.

“So the idea is to leave it on the website and in our dedicated Frère pop-up, and then we will see,” she continued. “We really want this to be very designer-driven, so it’s really up to our founder to see if she is inspired by something else.”

More pragmatically, Day still sees margins of growth in the existing assortment, eyeing huge potential in bags and shoes — both fast-growing categories — as well as dresses, compared to the shirts, knitwear and tailoring the brand is best known for.