The New York sportswear label pairs an exclusive retail placement with a November flagship opening and a full shift to Italian manufacturing
Key Takeaways
- Aflalo has named Net-a-Porter its exclusive global digital retail partner, replacing a smaller prior arrangement with Moda Operandi.
- The brand opens its first flagship this November at 65 Greene Street in SoHo, a 3,000-square-foot space designed by Martin Brûlé Studio.
- The store sits directly across from Aflalo’s existing studio, tying the retail expansion physically to the brand’s design operation.
- Aflalo has also shifted manufacturing entirely to Italy, positioning the label at a friendlier price point than traditional luxury while using comparable mills and materials.
Aflalo, the New York luxury sportswear label founded by Yael Aflalo in 2024, has entered a new phase of its retail strategy with Net-a-Porter now serving as its exclusive global digital partner. The move formalizes a level of retail curation the brand had not previously secured, and it arrives alongside a first physical flagship set to open in SoHo this November.
Aflalo described the retailer as a steady, consistent destination amid wholesale turmoil, a framing that positions the partnership as a stability play rather than a growth chase. Net-a-Porter’s chief buying and merchandising officer, Brigitte Chartrand, characterized the brand as suited to occasion dressing, which suggests the retailer sees Aflalo filling a specific customer need rather than competing broadly across its assortment.
The brand has also completed a full shift of its manufacturing to Italy. This decision puts it in the same production tier as established luxury houses while keeping its price point noticeably lower. That gap between production quality and retail price is the most consequential detail in this story, since it defines how Aflalo is positioning itself against the brands it now shares shelf space with.
Taken together, the Net-a-Porter placement, the flagship and the Italian manufacturing shift describe a brand attempting to borrow the credibility signals of traditional luxury, curated digital retail, European production, a SoHo address, without adopting traditional luxury pricing. Whether that positioning holds as the brand scales into its own physical retail will be the more interesting question to track once the flagship opens.