Mattioli opens Milan flagship as its private equity backer eyes a global relaunch
Chief executive Claudio Pasta says the business plan he joined for targets revenues three to four times the current baseline within five years.
Mattioli has opened its first Milan store, a flagship on Via Della Spiga in the city's Golden Triangle, as the Turin jeweler pushes to become a global name rather than a niche Italian one. The store was inaugurated on Monday with help from the brand's first ambassador, Chiara Ferragni.
The opening is the clearest move yet by chief executive Claudio Pasta, who joined exactly a year ago with a mandate from private equity fund Peninsula to steer Mattioli toward international recognition. Peninsula bought a minority stake of about 20 percent in the company in 2024.
Pasta described the fund's thinking plainly: it backed the contract-manufacturing side of the business, but was really betting on reviving the Mattioli brand itself, which he said Peninsula viewed as a sleeping beauty nobody had invested in fully before.
What the Milan store looks like
The boutique is decked in a shade of champagne, with sinuous shapes that nod to the brand's Puzzle collection, durmast wood detailing and accents in Mattioli's signature intense burgundy. Pasta called Milan a milestone and a sine qua non for international recognition and desirability.
He acknowledged the timing looks premature. "There is never a good time to lose money on a boutique, but it is better to do it now," he said, adding with a chuckle that the move might look early but is strategically necessary all the same.
The Milan store follows openings in Forte dei Marmi and Porto Cervo, two high-traffic Italian resort destinations, and arrives weeks before a fully revamped flagship on Rome's Via del Babuino reopens. Mattioli is treating Italian retail as the immediate priority before it looks abroad.
The company behind the brand
Mattioli's roots go back to 1859, when the goldsmith atelier Antica Ditta Marchisio was founded in Turin and given the state hallmark 1TO as the first firm registered in the city. The Mattioli family acquired that atelier in 1995, building it into a leading third-party jeweler.
The family introduced the namesake Mattioli brand in 2000 as a side project for design experimentation, and did not commit to it fully until Peninsula's 2024 investment. The brand now generates a low double-digit share of the company's total revenues.
That brand has still delivered double-digit growth year over year, according to Pasta, on the back of a manufacturing base of 250 goldsmiths spread across Italian jewelry hubs including Turin. It also counts about 250 wholesale partners across geographies.
The house is best known for pairing coloured gemstones and diamonds with 18-karat gold, exemplified by its hero Puzzle collection, plus the Hiroko and Navettes lines, which set diamonds and mother-of-pearl into yellow gold in sinuous, essential shapes.
Pasta frames the positioning as deliberately dual. "The brand has historically been positioned somewhere in the middle, with fine-jewelry expertise but a fashion-jewelry approach," he said, adding that the intention is to elevate it without losing that DNA.
The expansion plan and its numbers
Real estate extends beyond stores. Mattioli is finalising new headquarters of 4,305 square feet on Turin's Piazza San Carlo, scheduled to open in November, with a showroom to follow there in January, consolidating the brand's operations in its home city.
Europe currently generates 80 percent of Mattioli's wholesale revenues, and Pasta names it as the central focus of the first two years of his business plan, with what he calls strong acceleration also planned in the Middle East despite regional conflict.
The company is evaluating franchising opportunities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Pasta said the business plan he joined targets a highly profitable market position within five years, with revenues three to four times the current baseline.
On the United States, Pasta is more cautious. Mattioli already has offices on Fifth Avenue and around ten retailers in the country, but he does not see a further near-term push there, despite calling America the most obvious and lucrative target.
He is more animated about Asia, particularly Japan, where he believes the local taste for stackable, layered jewelry suits Mattioli's offering. "We are stepping on the gas there because we believe we can build brand equity and reputation more quickly," he said.
Paris is also on his mind, though no site has been chosen. "Of course in ten years, I see the brand with flagships in Paris, New York and probably Asia, starting with Japanese department stores," Pasta said, sketching the horizon he is working toward.
Pasta is betting that hard jewelry's resilience against wider luxury softness gives him room to move. "If we are in the right spaces and with the right partners, we will be ready to take market share as soon as consumption rebounds," he said.
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Images: Courtesy of Mattioli