The Fahertys are heading overseas.
Less than a year after testing the waters with a booth at the Pitti Uomo show in Florence, the New York-based company is opening its first international unit in France.
The 3,000-square-foot store is located at 28 Rue Gambetta, in the center of the town of Biarritz, which Mike Faherty, chief creative officer and cofounder, described as “the European hub of surfing.”
Faherty, who founded the brand with his twin brother Alex in 2012 as a sustainably sourced East Coast-skewed men’s sportswear collection that offered an alternative to the brightly colored California surf brands, said he’s been spending his summers in Biarritz for the past eight years and has immersed himself in the community and culture.
“I first heard about Biarritz in 1994 watching ‘Endless Summer 2’ on repeat,” he said. “Surfing in France wasn’t even on my radar then, but the vibe of the Basque coast and the feeling of French summer stuck with me, and I promised myself I’d get there one day. Twenty-three years later I finally did, with my now wife, who had been spending her summers there. From the moment you arrive, there’s a slower pace to life, a warmth and sense of peace — bakea in Basque — and a deep respect for the earth, the ocean and tradition. Biarritz [has] that great mix of surf culture with amazing food, and a laid-back spirit made it the natural place for us to open our first store in Europe.”
Inside the Faherty store in Biarritz, which opens Thursday.
Courtesy of Faherty
The store, which will open on Thursday, was designed in collaboration with architect and designer Louise Pastres and blends the casual and comfortable Faherty aesthetic with influences from the local beach community. In addition to the brand’s core men’s and women’s product, it will also offer some custom product such as sweatshirts with the word Biarritz printed on them and some locally produced co-branded espadrilles. The store will also feature the photographs of Turbulente Kombucha founder Julien Binet showcasing the local surf community.
He said that showing at Pitti helped the brand gauge how it would “fit in the international landscape,” he said. And the results gave them the confidence they needed to take the plunge.
“We saw that we were ready,” he said. “We could just tell by how our collection looked compared to other collections, the response from international buyers, and the way we were able to get the right distributors across the different regions.”
Faherty’s first entry into international waters started with the Spanish department store El Corte Inglés where it has five shops-in-shop. And this fall, the brand will be added to a variety of retailers in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France.
“All that momentum made me really confident that we’d have success opening up our own international store,” he said.
And if successful, it will be the first of many. “By 2030, our plan is to have international be almost 30 percent of our business — that’s in our long-range plan. I really think that against all of our American contemporaries, we can go international and be a world-class brand. I learned that from my education at Ralph U,” he said, referring to his earlier career at Ralph Lauren. “Being a part of that brand, and seeing how Ralph is so relevant overseas, I think that’s made his brand stand the test of time, versus a lot of his contemporaries.”
While the European customers may not know Faherty, he believes it’s only a matter of time before they discover the brand. “We’re finding everyone overseas shares the same love of the Faherty lifestyle: laid-back beach vacations, ski trips. We’re seeing success already in wholesale so it’s looking like it’s going to play out a similar way as in the States.”
In the U.S., he said the company started opening stores in coastal communities such as Malibu, Calif., and Nantucket, Mass., before moving into cities. “That’s how we feel about Europe: Let’s get our people on vacation. Let them love the brand in their happy places, and then they’ll find us down the road when we’re ready to open shops in international cities.”
He said the distributor network that the company has created for its wholesale business will also oversee the international stores. He said the company is looking for additional locations in the beach areas of Germany as well as in the U.K. and London. “We’re starting to plot our city rollout.” Toward that end, Faherty will open a monthlong pop-up at the Merci concept store in Paris this April.
Faherty is a big fan of brick-and-mortar stores.
Courtesy of Faherty
Faherty said the company is a big proponent of retail. “You come in, you feel the vibe — between the decor, the interior design, the visual merchandising, it all really has our personality. That’s so important because anyone can make their stuff look beautiful online.”
He said the goal for the company is to have “that classic 30-30-30 split” of wholesale, retail and online, although right now, retail accounts for a more than one-third.
In 2023, reports surfaced that the family had hired a financial adviser to find investors or sell a stake surfaced. Faherty wouldn’t tip his hand, saying only: “The Fahertys still own the majority of the company,” he said.
