In 1987, Susanne and Christoph Botschen opened Theresa, a womenswear boutique in central Munich with an instinct for designers the city hadn’t yet discovered. It was among the first retailers to bring Prada and Dolce & Gabbana to Munich and by the early 1990s it was championing Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Romeo Gigli and Helmut Lang.
In 2006, the Botschens built a website and changed the brand name to Mytheresa (they sold the business in 2014). Two decades later that website turns over close to €1bn a year, selling an edit of some 250 fashion brands and sitting at the centre of a group that last spring absorbed Net-a-Porter, Mr Porter and Yoox.
The physical store has grown as well. In 2020, a menswear boutique opened next door to the original on Maffeistrasse, in the heart of the city’s luxury quarter, and now the interior of the 1,200sq m women’s shop has been reimagined by Italian architect Roberto Baciocchi. It unfolds across three distinctly designed floors: brown carpeting and travertine on the ground floor for shoes, bags and accessories; warm wood and mirrored fitting-room columns upstairs for ready-to-wear and fine jewellery; and a monochrome basement of illuminated columns and aluminium mesh dedicated to contemporary fashion. It stocks The Row, Alaïa, Phoebe Philo, Sacai, Toteme and Manolo Blahnik – all exclusive to the store in Munich – alongside Bottega Veneta, Khaite, Celine, Valentino, Gucci, Prada and Miu Miu.
Some 45 people work across the two boutiques, which took €14.4mn in net sales last financial year. The manager, Stefan Kern, has been with Mytheresa for more than 30 years. Many customers have been shopping with him for decades.
“This is where the business started and where a lot of brand relationships started,” says Michael Kliger, the CEO of LuxExperience, the NYSE-listed group that now owns Mytheresa. “We were not a magazine. We were not a tech start-up. We were first and foremost a boutique. This is where the DNA is: curation and inspiration.” As a physical boutique, space is always limited. It’s a discipline they also exercise online. “The biggest mistake you could make is to think ‘the website is endless, so I can have infinite pieces’.”
Francis Belin, who took over as Mytheresa’s CEO in January this year after nearly a decade at Christie’s, says the customers appreciate curation. “They say, ‘I want to go to Mytheresa and see the best 20 black dresses of the season. I don’t need 750.’”
Tiffany Hsu, Mytheresa’s chief buying and group fashion ventures officer, says the store stocks brands according to a strict criteria. “Is it filling a gap, either aesthetically or functionally?” she asks. To be a “hot” name is not enough. “Hype is very shortlived. We’re not chasing a quick buck. We are chasing long-term loyalty and a lifetime spend.”
Early on the store was critical to the website’s success. “In the beginning it was the gauge for many brands that started to work with us digitally,” says Kliger. Today, it still acts as a sounding board. Hsu says that while crunching data is all important, the dialogue that the store has with its clients remains an invaluable resource.
“When customers return something online, they just say it’s too big or too small, or they don’t like the materials,” she says. “The store will give you more insight – the button doesn’t really work, the fit is weird, or they think it’s too expensive.” It’s a depth of insight that has been gathered over years.
Personal service remains a focus across the stores and website. Belin says 40 per cent of business is done with four per cent of clients. The brand employs approximately 100 personal shoppers, and facilitates a programme of Maison Mytheresa events. Some of these glitzy happenings take place in Munich, with a year-round calendar of dinners, cocktails and bespoke occasions working with brands including Manolo Blahnik, Valentino and Gabriela Hearst.
Others happen further afield. In May, top menswear clients travelled to the Amalfi Coast for a two-day experience with Brioni that culminated in a bespoke tailoring masterclass at Il San Pietro di Positano from the house’s chief master tailor, Angelo Petrucci. In June, Maison Mytheresa popped up on a yacht on the Côte d’Azur for a series of trunk shows, private styling appointments and conversations with brands including Missoni, Roberto Cavalli, Aquazzura and Saman Amel.
“These aren’t transactional events,” says Belin. “They are recognition for loyalty; it’s the experience that money can’t buy.” Numbers are small – around 50 to 70 guests at a time. “You have clients hopping on a plane to fly 10 hours for the dinner and then flying back,” says Belin.
Menswear – which launched online in 2020 and accounts for around 10 per cent of the business – is where the brand will next flex its muscles. Sophie Jordan, Mytheresa’s menswear buying director, says what surprises her is the client appetite for self-expression: statement tailoring is a strong category, whether that’s “a hot-pink double-breasted suit from Tom Ford” or “a softer silhouette tuxedo with a satin scarf detail from Valentino”. At the Munich store, top brands include Miu Miu, Loewe and Saman Amel for a clientele that’s “confident and independent with a highly developed sense of personal style”.
Kliger’s ambition for the business starts and ends with the client. “We want to have the most amazing customer file in the world for luxury,” he says. “It’s not a revenue target. It’s a customer target that then translates itself into revenue.” As for the shop, it will remain at the heart of the brand – the place where Munich gets Phoebe Philo, The Row and Alaïa before anywhere else in the city. And, as Kliger says, “a fantastic opportunity for people in Munich to see luxury retail in its physical form and to understand what it means”.
Mytheresa, Maffeistraße 3, 80333 München, Germany. mytheresa.com, @mytheresa.com
Lead image: (from left) Mytheresa’s CEO Francis Belin, store manager Stefan Kern, menswear buying director Sophie Jordan, chief buying & group fashion ventures officer Tiffany Hsu and LuxExperience’s CEO Michael Kliger
