Italy’s Minotti to Open 10 New Global Locations
MILAN — Minotti, the Italian luxury furnishings company famous for sleek designs like its Van Dyck table and Hamilton sofa, will open 10 new stores by the end of this year.
Minotti co-chief executive officer Roberto Minotti told WWD that 2023 is about exploring new areas of business and consolidating the company’s target markets, ruling out acquisitions in the near-term.
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Minotti’s father, Alberto, started a small-scale artisan workshop in 1948 and quickly saw it rise to an industrial reality during the boom of the 1960s. Roberto now runs the company side by side with his brother, Renato, and the two have been credited with pioneering growth and international expansion since their father’s death in the ’90s.
Openings include second-tier cities like Shenzhen and Chongqing in China; Seoul; Kobe, Japan; Marbella, Spain; Lisbon, Portugal; Dusseldorf, Germany; Casablanca, Morocco; Tunis, Tunisia and Mumbai, India.
Across the board, interior brands are focusing on smaller cities, since the pandemic prompted consumers of luxury goods to search for larger houses and more outdoor space in areas outside the traditional metropolises.
For example, Italy’s leading high-end design, furniture and lighting company Design Holding, which comprises leading brands B&B Italia, Flos, Menu, By Lassen, Lumens, Louis Poulsen, Arclinea, Maxalto, Azucena and Fendi Casa through a joint venture with the Roman fashion house, is gearing up to unfurl a new store concept to complete the home, targeting first- and second-tier cities in the U.S. and Asia.
Family-run peer Molteni Group, with sales of 460 million euros in 2022, will open an additional 24 stores in 2023 with new doors slated for Frankfurt; Belgrade, Serbia; Mumbai; Melbourne, Australia, as well as countries such as Singapore, Panama and Mexico.
Minotti said another focus is its interior decoration department, which specifically deals with the interior design of Minotti’s flagship stores. “Our first aim is to listen to the market, adopting our code to the emerging trends, respecting the cultural heritage [and] evolution of contemporary lifestyles,” he said, adding that Minotti Studio is an incubator of prized skills throughout the creative supply chain — from architecture to interior design, from prototyping to engineering, from graphics to visual and from marketing to communication.
Minotti Studio gives shape to designers’ ideas and projects, channeling their creative energies based on different cultural roots, in the development of indoor and outdoor collections for the residential and hospitality segments. These collections reflect the Minotti identity as well as the evolution of living habits which are more focused on the harmony of the home, open spaces and convivial living.
One of its latest retail sites is located in Florence’s Piazza Strozzi where Minotti imbued the historic grandeur of the Renaissance-era setting with its contemporary “European Domestic” vision illustrated with its Connery and Roger models by its longtime art director and collection coordinator Rodolfo Dordoni, the Lars and Sendai by Japanese Danish duo Inoda+Sveje and the Boteco tables by Brazilian modernist architect Marcio Kogan.
In 2022, Minotti saw sales rise 17 percent to 230 million euros versus 2021. Looking ahead, the company is focused on growing in markets like the Middle East, where it has both flagship stores and sells through established retailers like regional luxury furniture hub Aati. “It’s a growing market with great potential where we want to increasingly develop our network of strategic and commercial objectives,” the co-CEO said.
At the same time, Minotti has its eye on emerging markets and captivating rising digital native generations who embrace Minotti’s futuristic style on vacation and at home. “We never forget to be effective and attractive in the eye of an international and globetrotter consumer, who we hope will recognize itself in our style and product. We want to keep growing, consolidate our key markets whilst exploring new business areas,” the executive said.
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