Francis Belin’s plan to turn Mytheresa into luxury’s best-connected club

Francis Belin has big shoes to fill. He took the reins of online fashion retailer Mytheresa from Michael Kliger at the start of this year – a time when the business was already at the top of its game, beating market trends, posting double-digit growth and becoming a retail partner for brands from menswear behemoths such as Zegna to Kering stalwarts Bottega Veneta. Under Kliger, Munich-based Mytheresa has become a luxury multi-brand digital platform, with some of the highest-spending customers from around the world. In 2025, it acquired one of its largest competitors, the Net-a-Porter Group, to form LuxExperience. In the third quarter, net sales rose 10 per cent to €250m. Europe remains the company’s biggest market, with the US and Middle East following behind.

When Monocle meets Belin on a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles, it quickly becomes evident that he’s more than up to the task of continuing this growth trajectory as CEO. “Let’s make it clear: if I didn’t see further opportunities, it would be very dangerous for me to take the job,” says Belin, who has spent the past 21 years working across the luxury industry in Asia, starting with a managing director post at watchmaker Jaeger-LeCoultre in Tokyo. More recently, he served as Asia-Pacific president at Christie’s in Hong Kong.

Fresh from a trip to New York, by way of Munich, he’s preparing to welcome top-spending clients and influential US editors at Dawnridge house in Beverly Hills, the former home of Hollywood interior designer Tony Duquette. “I sold part of Duquette’s collection at Christie’s, so it’s a full-circle moment,” says Belin, as he takes us on a tour of the house’s maximalist, jewel-toned rooms. The occasion is an intimate dinner held alongside Valentino, one of Mytheresa’s top-performing brands.

Since joining, Belin has also hosted dinners in the Hamptons for East Coast clients, attended fashion shows in Milan and Paris, and overseen the summer edition of Maison Mytheresa – a two-week residency on a yacht that sailed between Monaco and Saint-Tropez, offering trunk shows, cocktail parties and private shopping appointments. Belin, who enjoys the occasional late-night party, certainly matches the sociable, high-flying spirit that has been integral to Mytheresa’s success.

He’s convinced that this people-centric approach will ensure that the business stays on top. “I don’t even like the term multibrand retailer,” he says, explaining that Mytheresa has moved past the traditional wholesale model that has slowed many competitors. It’s also a host, entertainer and private club of sorts, with access to high-spending fashion clients from across the globe. “If you scratch beneath the surface, it becomes clear that we’re not just an ‘e-tailer’. We’re all about relationships, first and foremost with our customers but also with the brands that we sell. We’re extremely focused on who our customers are and what’s interesting to them. We then remove everything that’s not relevant, so there’s no clutter.”

Investing in logistics and a seamless online experience remains “the bedrock” of the business, says Belin, yet he keeps returning to more traditional values, primarily relationship building. “That’s the part that ties this to my previous experience at Christie’s, where it was all about people’s relationships with sellers who would trust you to sell some of the most prized objects in the world,” he says. “With buyers too, there were generational relationships. You got to know the whole family.” As luxury prices rise and clients start to adopt a collector’s mind-set, Belin’s approach feels timely. In his eyes, curation is more important than ever, even in a digital-first world where there are fewer space limitations on stock. “We don’t want to be a place where you have everything for everybody,” he says. “Mytheresa is the place where you have exactly what a specific audience is looking for. That’s real curation.”

This means a constantly reviewed edit of up to 250 fashion brands and 30 fine-jewellery labels. There are also ongoing efforts to secure access to exclusive capsule collections and brands that are hard to find elsewhere, such as Phoebe Philo. “It’s all about access,” he says. “In the art world, we would have pre-sales and here we have exclusive capsules, pre-launches and trunk shows for our customers.”

The fact that brands – from the digitally shy Phoebe Philo to established names Brioni and Miu Miu – are willing to offer this level of access is remarkable in itself. “It goes beyond being able to sell their products at full price,” says Belin. “It’s the way we tell their stories, put together campaigns and address our top customers’ needs. So many of them want to have access to a curated selection, instead of spending three days going up and down Fifth Avenue or Avenue Montaigne. Mono-brand retail can’t replicate this.”

Belin plans to scale initiatives such as Maison Mytheresa, creating more seasonal residences and money-can’t-buy experiences to keep customers entertained – and his own curiosity fed. “I do all of my market research at our events,” he adds. “If you’re sitting next to me at dinner, I’m going to grill you. I want to know everything.” It’s why travelling to LA with Valentino and pulling out all the stops was a top priority. The event that he co-hosted included everything from a live orchestra to an alfresco dinner in Dawnridge’s garden and a desert room filled with towers of cannoli and giant bowls of tiramisu. Despite the grandeur, by the end of the evening, guests were unwinding in the cosy lounge, tasting the sweet treats and getting to know each other. “We create those rare occasions where people barely touch their phones – that’s luxury to me,” says Belin. “We have to keep investing in technology for various reasons but that’s something that AI can’t crack. We won’t be replacing the taste of our buyers, or the real-life events that our team puts together, with technology.”