Ami's 13 Years: Friendship, Fashion, and Mattiussi's Vision

“I want to make clothes that are reliable. Clothes that I can wear, and that my friends can wear. It’s very simple,” Alexandre Mattiussi tells me, speaking exclusively before tonight’s Ami show. Yet, the truth about this scoop is that it’s nothing new: just as the founder refers to every new collection as “my favorite”, Mattiussi has been preaching the same message of “straightforward clothes for real people” ever since he presented Ami’s first collection in 2011. Tonight’s show is a 15th-anniversary special. Is Mattiussi excited about the milestone? “I will be more excited about the 18th,” he says flatly. “That’s a really important number. And I think the best is yet to come. But I am very excited about the collection. It’s the beginning of a new cycle for me. It’s got a new energy, a splash of color, of joy — and of reality.” I know what he’s going to say next, and he does: “It’s my favorite!” Born and raised in Normandy to an Italian father and a French mother, Mattiussi knew his vocation from an early age. After stints at Dior Homme, Marc Jacobs, and Givenchy, he founded Ami in late 2010 as a menswear alternative to the overcomplication and performative angoisse he’d observed in his career thus far: the clothes, strikingly relatable; while the spiel, naturally unpretentious. “I suppose if I wanted to be, maybe, a controversial, political, or conceptual designer, I could be. But it’s not my thing,” Mattiussi says. ‘Ami’, bien sûr, means “friend”. The brand’s official name also includes the word ‘Paris’ to emphasize the casual Parisian ease Mattiussi had observed less at his places of work than in his places of play, among his friends. Which brings us to Nicolas Santi-Weil, who has been CEO and the financial yin to Mattiussi’s creative yang since 2013. “We feel like an old couple in a way,” says Mattiussi, as Santi-Weil laughs from his box on the video call. “At 13 years, it’s one of my longest relationships, and I am very proud.” Like any old couple, the pair occasionally clash, but have learned through counseling how to de-escalate. Says Santi-Weil: “We’ve learned to count down and find the time to express to one another when we disagree, or don’t understand something. I think it’s a beautiful relationship. I have full trust in Alexandre, and I’m amazed by his creativity, which is driven by wanting to make people happy. So if you ask how do I stay for 13 years, then it is because of this.” Now aged 48, Santi-Weil started his career at the Calvados shirting company Liste Rouge, before co-founding and acting as executive director of The Kooples between 2008 and 2012. Asked what he took from this earlier experience when building Ami, Santi-Weil replies: “At Liste Rouge, I learned the importance of crafts and material — product is the essence. It was fun because we had an excellent product, but poor communication and marketing. Whereas at The Kooples, it was a little bit the opposite.” He expands: “We had a daring strategy, opening many stores in a crisis period. I learned that even when it’s very dark, if you have a strong idea, know exactly what you want to do, and have the guts to make it happen, you can make great things.” Ami received its first external investment in 2012, from Bpifrance’s government-backed Mode et Finance fund, followed by a round led by Neo. In January 2021, Mattiussi and Santi-Weil brought in Sequoia Capital China (now Hongshan) as a shareholder, before adding Felix Capital at the end of 2022. Despite the dilution that came with successive rounds, the founders structured shareholder agreements — or “ManPacks”, in finance speak — to retain operational and creative control. “You don’t need 80% or even 51% of the stock to protect your brand,” says Santi-Weil. “Control comes from the shareholder agreement. Alexandre has full creative freedom, and we are very clear about which decisions are ours.” Recent speculation has mooted Hongshan’s potential exit, though Santi-Weil stresses there is no active mandate. “They invested more than five years ago, so it’s natural they start thinking about the next stage,” he says. “But there is no rush.” Santi-Weil cites Centerview Partners, Ami’s investment banking advisor for nearly a decade, as a key factor in its ongoing growth. “They are really excellent and really care about the business.” Hongshan’s entry coincided with a period of rapid expansion for Ami. The brand’s revenues rose from €35 million in 2019 to more than €300 million in 2023. Current trading, the company says, “is growing in double digits”. Santi-Weil characterizes Hongshan’s contribution as strategic backing in a moment of acceleration, as Ami expanded its retail network, brought e-commerce operations in-house, and increased its direct exposure to the Asian and US markets. “They didn’t invest in a brand,” he says. “They invested in a duo of entrepreneurs.” Santi-Weil says his focus as CEO has shifted from expansion to consolidation, characterizing the current moment as one of maturation. The company began reassessing whether its internal structures had kept pace, investing in software, strengthening teams, and working with external business coaches and supply chain consultants to address the gaps created by hypergrowth. This reassessment has solidified Ami’s longstanding emphasis on scale over margin. “We have higher footfall but lower prices,” Santi-Weil continues. The company has fixed its positioning on what Mattiussi describes as “friendly luxury”. This involves using the same Italian fabric suppliers as major fashion houses, while keeping prices below the top of the market by producing in Portugal, Eastern Europe, and other more competitive locales. “We stick to this idea of a fair price, not a crazy luxury price,” Santi-Weil says. “We used to be just below Loewe and Celine, the less expensive luxury. But since the moves they made in the last [few] seasons, the price gap has been increasing a lot.” Asked whether the future could see a sale to one of France’s luxury conglomerates, Santi-Weil is cautious. “I don’t want to say never,” he says. “But it’s not the goal. The goal is to keep this freedom.” That freedom extends to Ami’s 830 employees worldwide. The brand currently has 650 wholesale accounts, 70 points of retail, and a thriving digital shopfront that has helped transform Ami’s sales profile to around two-thirds direct-to-consumer. The point, he stresses, is not to grow at any cost, but to ensure that growth does not alter the brand's nature. That nature remains firmly relatable. Ami’s in-house mantra — ECCO — is an acronym for “engagement, creativity, confidence, and optimism”. These are all qualities I’ve long observed in Mattiussi, who seems immune to Parisian luxury’s operational paranoia. When I suggest that the straightforwardness and popularity of his products are sometimes dismissed within that milieu, he says, “I like to be popular, but the fashion industry can be very snobbish. And this is funny, because I don’t care. I don’t have anxiety. I sleep very well. We don’t run to, you know, the fame and the glory. I have my path. I have my journey, and it’s a good one — it’s enough.” Santi-Weil adds: “There are many challenges and many beautiful things to build with Ami. We have a long-term vision, and we know exactly where we want to go.”