Italian label Elisabetta Franchi to open New York subsidiary, new stores in USA and China in 2019

By

Elena Passeri

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Sep 24, 2018

The year 2018 marks two important milestones for Elisabetta Franchi, the Italian designer and founder of the eponymous womenswear label: she is celebrating her 20th year in business and will fête her 50th birthday, on December 8. But the label is also busy with major international expansion projects, in the USA, China and Russia.

“We are working to finalise our entry into the USA, a tough market but one which can generate great returns,” said Franchi, talking to FashionNetwork.com at Milan Fashion Week. “By 2019, we are planning to open a subsidiary in New York, building a local sales force and opening five stores in some of the USA’s most exclusive locations,” she added.
 
In China, a market where Elisabetta Franchi is present with a directly operated store in Hong Kong and a few franchised stores, “we recently set up a Hong Kong-based company, with the objective of opening a minimum of 20 stores in the country in the next five years,” said Franchi. The label showed at the Milan Fashion Week on September 22, at the Teulié Military Academy.

“For our new collection, I imagined a playful, colour-filled dream exploding on the catwalk. I banned black from the palette, and focused on colours like peony, pollen and aquamarine. As for the accessories, I drew inspiration from the world of children, designing jewellery, handbags and enamel earrings in the shapes of hearts and hot-air balloons.” Elisabetta Franchi’s Spring/Summer 2019 collection jettisoned strict codes, and its motto was “mixing it up, as with the evening dress matched to an uber-colourful parka,” said Franchi.
 
The Italian fashion label currently operates 91 monobrand stores, of which 25 are in Italy, and is about to open new stores in Bucharest, Riga (Latvia) and Krasnodar (Russia). Elisabetta Franchi has been owned by its parent company Betty Blue SpA  since last year, and for the 2018 financial year it is targeting a revenue of €115 million, €5 million more than in 2017.