“Retail and expansion are like a mountain ascent”

Entify the presence and consolidate the position in order to be able to better counter the competition of the giants of the Ready-to-Wear industry-this is the leitmotif of the French fashion brand American Vintage, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. An anniversary that is accompanied by a remarkable growth dynamics, and that in a market environment in which many other brands have to deal with considerable difficulties.

Based on the ongoing success – the turnover was almost 200 million euros in 2024 – the company forced the opening of new boutiques in the USA, Hong Kong, China and in Great Britain, the Netherlands, Spain and France in 2025.

In order to better understand the recipe for success, fashionunited spoke to CEO Michaël Azoulay about training, the further development of the seller: Inner job and the international expansion plans of American Vintage.

American Vintage has invested strongly in the area of ​​training. Where does the brand stand today?

Michaël Azoulay: We founded our own “university” – the AMV Camp. There we bundle many functions, especially for retail, but not exclusively. We are also active in the business-to-business area. Our programs include merchandising, product, sales and back office, with all updates and tools that are used both in the store and at the headquarters.

We have developed a number of digital tools that help the teams to use data in real time and thereby gain better insights into their business. Recruiting, law and HR are also part of the campus. Today it is a large location that is entirely committed to trade and customer experience. We offer master classes for various professional groups weekly. Our motto is continuous learning.

The brand now employs more than 1,000 people: inside. What big challenges face in the field of recruiting today?

It is about maintaining cohesion with a company that grows, develops and structured. To maintain the cohesion between the sales point, the field and the headquarters with the values ​​of a family company that is not managed by a financial investor and at the same time does business.

We have to be very good in management, forecast and development, but in a cool and at the same time demanding management. This means: to maintain appreciation and claim and to accept the development of things between the occurring and excreting persons, not to become a company with groups. To preserve authenticity. So far we have always succeeded, maybe because we have remained a family company that is very present. But it is true that there are always moments in development when there is a little more tensions, deadlines, urgency and improvisation.

The profession of: The sales consultant: In has changed a lot. How do you see this position?

For me everything starts here. I started with it and will always be a glowing advocate of this profession that has to be upgraded. I am 46 years old and when we were young we learned everything when we worked in a shop: contact with the people, to the product, to win self -confidence, to receive … but there has been something “out of fashion” over the years. In general, the work in a boutique is not easy [die Leute] Better want to work in offices. The actual business begins there.

It is important to us to rethink the business of tomorrow, to rethink the teams, which, I hope, are already better informed. That is why we focus strongly on the training to make them aware that this experience that begins in business will free them and develop them for their future. Of course, you don’t have to spend your whole life in business because it is exhausting, but it starts there. Especially since we give you access to many tools and knowledge that you prepare for the future, either to be able to manage branch networks, or to be used in offices or elsewhere depending on your sensitivity.

Shop managers: Today, people who have completed a few years of business school can be inside, because tomorrow’s business will be increasingly networked and geared towards commercial marketing, with teams who speak several languages ​​and have access to information and thus know. We will have Customer Relationship Management (CRM), events, it is complete. With such a dynamic you could even imagine having more fun in the shop than in the office.

We have to try to change the view of the seller’s job: to change inside. But this also requires shops that may outsource the delivery much more, free space and relieve the processes in the business in order to concentrate more on the customer: internal experience, knowledge and management.

Several openings are planned in Europe as well as in China and the United States. What macro goals do you follow with this compression?

Presence and visibility. With this development we will try to stimulate things. We work in a profession in which our competitors are “monster”. We are in competition with corporations such as Inditex or Chinese corporations that have great ease access to European and other consumers: inside. So that we have access to Chinese or American consumers: we have to look at the world like a country. This is the only way we can give the creative teams the opportunity to have larger playing fields and to continue to pursue creativity.

We are in direct contact with the consumer: inside and can afford to drive the creativity with new products that we constantly test, and then to develop them on a larger scale depending on the performance.

Retail and expansion are like a mountain ascent. If you don’t get up, you get off. There is an eternal movement. There is no break or standstill in development. We do not work in the Fast fashion, we are not in the competition for novelties, but we are in the race and in the competition for development, in the race for creativity, for new materials, about the development of the product, about the development of the way of thinking, because if you do not rise, you go back.

It is this development mentality that needs to be preserved and which is also a challenge. It’s about always having a mentality in motion. This does not mean that you develop for the sake of development, but that you can remain competitive and competitive with a very sporty mentality.

You will soon launch technical products that are dedicated to sport. How will the brand differentiate in this already highly competitive segment?

We do not have the desire to do this on a large scale with our own shops. We only want to create departments that help us develop our lifestyle. We believe that this fits completely into the world of the brand because sport has been very present in the company for more than 15 years. Here you have to have a very sporty attitude every day. It is not for nothing that we have had a fitness room with a trainer for 15 years: inside that give our employees: inside the opportunity to train every day.

With [dieser neuen Linie] We will focus more on technical products and at the same time an AMV-DNA, a more fashionable note through which materials, colors or prints bring in, something that you cannot find with the large specialized brands, which appeal to a larger number of people, because this is their core business. Our core business is knitting goods and collections that develop further.