London Fashion Week: Hentsch Man on the rise

By

Florent Gilles

Published
Jun 16, 2014

If Paris introduced the world to Alexandre Mattiussi, London could claim Alexia Hentsch. The half Brazilian half Swiss designer who founded the brand Hentsch Man in 2008, presented her new collection at LC: M, London’s menswear fashion week, on Sunday Jun 15.

"I wanted to give a nod to Brazil, where I was born, and to Latin America in general," says the young entrepreneur, who initially worked as a graphic designer Tyler Brulé’s agency Winkreative, and on his various projects, including Wallpaper and Monocle magazines.

Her contemporary menswear brand doesn’t yet have a permanent store, but since its launch, it has already opened eight pop-ups in London, where Alexia Hentsch has lived for 11 years.

"We choose pop-up shops because opening a store today means a huge investment that we cannot afford,” says the founder in French, one of her native languages. “The priority for us has been e-commerce. We ship worldwide, and our products, with their price positioning, sells very well online, including on Mr Porter, with whom we have successfully just produced a first capsule." The price of Hentsch Man shirt doesn’t exceed 100 euros and a jacket is around 250.

Hentsch Man’s light and cool style can be found at Shopping Center, FrenchTrotters and Colette in Paris, as well as in sixty outlets worldwide. The brand has participated in Parisian trade shows MAN and SEEK Berlin for the last six seasons. Opening Ceremony controls its distribution for the US, Japan and Korea.

"We have five permanent people in the office and have partners for marketing and distribution outside of Europe.” But the young CEO intends to do everything with an in-house team one day.