Ellesse plants its US flag in Dallas as tennis-led relaunch takes shape

Ellesse is running two parallel plays. Globally, the Italian sportswear label leans into nostalgia, casting British actor Andrew Garfield as an “honorary Italian” in a campaign built on 1980s and 1990s archive codes. In the United States, the strategy looks like infrastructure: a new headquarters in Dallas, a relaunched e-commerce site, and a planned flagship store, executed not by Ellesse itself but by a licensed American partner building the business from the ground up.

The two tracks connect. Pentland, Ellesse’s owner since 1994, signaled the U.S. return in July 2025 through a licensing deal with The Iconic Brand Corporation (TIBC), under which TIBC designs, develops, produces and markets Ellesse apparel in the U.S. alongside the brand’s London team. That agreement has now become physical presence: TIBC has stood up the Dallas headquarters, relaunched ellesse.us, and confirmed flagship plans, with tennis and ski as entry categories.

The company has positioned Dallas’s tennis culture as a key factor behind the headquarters decision, per TIBC Chairman Todd Furniss, who in 1978 became the first American tennis player Ellesse sponsored, and CEO Duwayne Miller.

The strategy is a narrow, sport-specific re-entry rather than a broad lifestyle relaunch.

That niche has history behind it. Ellesse, founded in Perugia in 1959, entered tennis in 1974 and peaked in the category the following decade, worn by Chris Evert for her 1982 Wimbledon title and Boris Becker for his in 1985.

Today’s tour roster, Croatian Donna Vekić and Chilean Alejandro Tabilo, is relatively limited compared with the brand’s 1980s peak, which puts more weight on the sponsorship pipeline: a Cincinnati Open partnership extending into the 2026 edition, and a new Charleston Open tie-up from 2027, giving Ellesse recurring, tour-adjacent U.S. visibility on a fixed calendar.