Italian sportswear brand Ellesse plans to return to the US market next year, undertaking DTC sales through ellesse.us in the spring and sales through flagship stores late in the year. According to Women’s Wear Daily (WWD), the objective by end-2027 is to generate 70 percent of sales by e-commerce and to have opened four flagships, whose locations are undisclosed. To get the ball rolling, Ellesse will be the apparel sponsor for this year’s Cincinnati Open tennis tournament, scheduled for Aug. 5-18.
To effect the return, Ellesse’s parent, Pentland Brands, has struck a long-term licensing deal with The Iconic Brand Corporation (TIBC), a new entity that was set up for the license and that will “design, develop, produce, and market” all of the brand’s apparel and accessories for the US. TIBC’s executives are all Texans operating in and around Dallas.
TIBC’s Chairman is Todd Furniss, CEO and Managing Partner at gTC Group (Dallas), a private investment firm operating, according to its website, in “middle-market, technology-enabled business services, financial services, and healthcare companies and the correlated real estate.” Furniss is also the host of a podcast, called Civil Discourse, devoted to healthcare and societal ills and has written a book on healthcare policy: The 60% Solution. His initial connection with Ellesse dates back to 1978, when he was the brand’s first contract tennis player in the US. This appears to have been in Furniss’s youth rather than in any professional capacity.
TIBC’s CEO is Duwayne Miller, who has in recent years served as CEO of SL Shaveco and President of Shavelogic (Dallas), both of which produce razors. In the 1990s and 2000s, however, he was an apparel executive with Prestige Home Textiles, Arena Brands, The Apparel Group and others.
TIBC’s CFO is a colleague of Miller’s from Shavelogic, PM Andersson, who has been President of Kitano Capital, Senior Vice President of International Finance at Hudson Advisors and a Manager at KPMG.
According to WWD, the brand owes its return to the US to its Senior Vice President, Jack Richardson, who joined Pentland from the New Zealand sportswear brand Canterbury a year and a half ago. Richardson believes that it has been a mistake in recent years for Ellesse to chase young customers by setting aside its “sports credentials” and founder Leonard Servadio’s Italian notion that “sport is the best way to find the Dolce Vita.”
Ellesse has made previous attempts to return to North America. In 2011, Pentland struck a licensing deal with an entity called Ellesse North America, as we reported at the time. Women’s tennis champion Chris Evert was at once a shareholder in the venture, its brand ambassador and the namesake of a capsule collection, Chris Evert for Ellesse. There were plans for such “lifetime sports” as skiing, golf and equestrianism, for an e-commerce site and for 25 standalone stores, the first slated for New York City.
In 2018, Pentland relaunched Ellesse in the US through a subsidiary, with distribution through retailers like Foot Locker and Urban Outfitters.
