Amina Rubinacci opens first store in New York on Madison Avenue

MILAN — Womenswear brand Amina Rubinacci is known for its offering based on Neapolitan tailoring traditions, which has earned it a loyal clientele among tourists on Capri and the Amalfi Coast. The brand is now expanding its presence in the United States with a new flagship store on New York’s Madison Avenue.

“We have been present in the United States for a long time; my mother was and is known as the mastermind behind the knit blazers, which became our hero product and have a huge following, especially among American customers who travel to Capri,” said Alessandro Spada, CEO of the company and son of founder Rubinacci.

When Davide Cenci, a longtime stockist for the brand, moved out of his historic location at 17 East 67th Street on the corner of Madison Avenue, the Italian brand took advantage of the prime location and large customer base to open its first flagship store in Manhattan.

The store, with two windows facing the street, is decorated in a minimalist style and features parquet floors and cream-colored walls with shelves for displaying clothes and accessories.

“We rely on retail and flagship stores because they allow us to express our identity in a more consistent and coherent way,” said Spada.

The brand, which the eponymous designer and entrepreneur founded in 1968 using her family’s textile heritage, entered the US market seven years ago and established a strong wholesale presence with around 50 retailers before opening flagship stores. These include shops in Palm Beach (Florida), Charlotte (North Carolina), Greenwich (Connecticut), Washington (DC) and Portland (Oregon), operated both directly and as a franchise.

“We never really turned to the big department stores and instead preferred specialty boutiques,” Spada explained.

In total, the company has 350 wholesale distributors worldwide, four franchise stores and 16 directly operated monobrand boutiques in key locations including Milan, Rome and Capri in Italy, Geneva, London and Moscow, to name a few.

“We are still a family business, which is both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. By maintaining a family-like and manageable size, we can expand step by step without neglecting our roots,” he said.

To this end, the brand is already considering its next expansion steps: openings in Vienna and Paris are planned for 2025. It also wants to consolidate its presence in Japan, where it benefits from a long-standing partnership with local distributor Sanki, which could eventually lead to the opening of monobrand stores in the country.

The brand’s business is evenly split between retail and wholesale, with the latter currently accounting for 60 percent of sales, which will reach €15 million in 2023. Spada expects a low double-digit increase in 2024, driven by strong markets such as the UK.