Moncler opens its biggest flagship in the world on Fifth Avenue
Executive chairman Remo Ruffini says the brand remains under-penetrated in the United States even as Americas revenue rose 6% at constant rates in the first half.
Moncler opened its biggest flagship in the world on Fifth Avenue on Thursday, a 23,680-square-foot, two-level store on the former site of FAO Schwarz and, more recently, a temporary Apple store during the renovation of that brand's own Fifth Avenue location.
Executive chairman Remo Ruffini said he had sought a New York location for years and considered this stretch, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, his own point of reference. His father lived in the city from 1968, and Ruffini said childhood visits left him marvelling at its scale.
Restructuring the space took three years. Ruffini turned again to Gilles & Boissier, the design studio led by husband and wife Patrick Gilles and Dorothee Boissier, which has designed roughly 250 Moncler locations over more than twenty years, as well as Ruffini's own residence.
Moncler is an Italian luxury brand renowned for its high-quality down jackets and outdoor apparel, and the flagship is built to show that range in full. The store's atrium rises 26 feet, framed by black granite-textured glass columns suggesting Manhattan's skyscraper skyline.
The ground floor carries menswear, womenswear and childrenswear from the Moncler Collection, plus Moncler Genius and footwear made with Clarks. Deeper in, women's outerwear is shown alongside blouses, knits, skirts and headwear to demonstrate the brand is not purely outerwear.
The second floor is given entirely to Moncler Grenoble, the brand's high-performance mountain and apres-ski line, which Ruffini calls the fastest-growing part of the business. It currently has only two dedicated boutiques worldwide, in Saint Moritz and Aspen.
The store also introduces a Moncler-to-Measure service, letting customers personalise styles with embellishments, fabrications and adjusted lengths, a process the brand says takes six to eight months from order to delivery.
On display are pieces including the floor-length puffer coat from the 1 Moncler Pierpaolo Piccioli fall 2019 collection worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in And Just Like That, and an outfit from the Moncler x EE72 by Edward Enninful capsule shown at Shanghai Fashion Week in 2024.
A LoveFrom by Sir Jony Ive assortment, exclusive to the store, includes patches depicting a vinyl record, a big apple and the Moncler bear mascot ascending the Empire State Building. Ruffini called Ive, who collaborated with Moncler on outerwear in 2024, the designer of the modern era.
Ruffini said the brand's US performance has been good but that Moncler remains under-penetrated compared with rivals. The Americas made up 13.5% of total brand revenue in the first half, with revenue there up 6% at constant exchange rates to 147 million euros.
Second-quarter revenue in the Americas rose 4% year on year, helped by direct-to-consumer sales and robust local spending. As of 30 June, Moncler ran 298 directly operated stores globally, a net increase of three over the previous quarter, with 54 boutiques in the Americas and about 35 in the US.
Ruffini said he does not see the flagship cannibalising wholesale, arguing the channel serves different customers even as specialty stores decline. Asked about Exemplar Luxury Group, formerly Saks Global, he praised chief executive Geoffroy van Raemdonck as serious, credible and capable of exceptional work.
We have covered flagship openings from other houses navigating similar bets on physical retail, including Ferragamo's renovated Rodeo Drive store under a new design language and Celine's wager on the same Los Angeles strip with a new US flagship.
Marking the opening, the New York in Moncler exhibit of retrospective images runs through Sunday, showing two decades of the brand's relationship with the city, with a companion display currently up at Grand Central Terminal and ads placed on bus shelters across Manhattan.
Moncler's first collection was presented in New York at Chelsea Piers during Fashion Week in January 2010. Ruffini said New York's cold winters, alongside Americans' enthusiasm for mountain pursuits beyond the ski season, give the brand room to grow as a year-round proposition.
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Images: Moncler; Courtesy of Moncler