London Calling: Byan’s First Permanent Store to Open Amid Global Expansion Plans

Byan projects abroad its proposal of women’s fashion made in Spain. The Madrid-based company sets international expansion as its main strategy for the coming years, which will begin with the opening of a first permanent physical store in London, where in recent months it has operated with a pop up in Covent Garden.

The company, with blazers at the center of its offer, closed the fiscal year with a turnover of three million euros. Since its birth, four years ago, it has achieved double-digit growth year after year. For the time being, Spain continues to be the main market. However, the goal is that next year international sales will exceed domestic sales, both physical and online.

Outside the country, for the moment, Byan has points of sale in Liberty, in London; Le Bon Marché, in Paris; El Corte Inglés, in Madrid and Lisbon; Bongénie, in Switzerland, and in Falabella, both in Chile and Peru. For this season, the brand had set its sights on reaching 50% of international online sales, but already exceeds 60%, with the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy as its main markets.

In 2024, Byan opened its first physical store in Madrid, at 97 Claudio Coello Street. This year, the company has launched its first own point of sale in London, at 28 Henrietta Street in Covent Garden. It is, however, a temporary store that will close soon to make way for a permanent physical store. “ We hope to unveil the location early next year,“ the company’s founder and CEO, Andrea Moragues, told Modaes.

Byan opened its first physical store in Madrid and, this year, a temporary store in London

Although Byan wants to continue growing in the domestic market, the team now puts “all the focus on international expansion,“ says the founder. “Byan has always had internationalization as a goal, so as not to saturate the domestic market,“ she says. London is, in fact, one of its three main markets outside Spain and, in addition, the founder considers that her proposal has always had an “English feel” reflected in straight cuts, inspired by men’s tailoring.

After its definitive landing in London, Byan plans to move into European markets, with an eventual opening at the end of next year or throughout 2027. “Our decisions are always well thought out,“ says the founder. Nor is she closed to wholesale, a channel in which she already has a presence in multi-brand stores in Seville and Bilbao. “It helps to make the product known at strategic points in European cities, but always with caution,“ she reaffirms.

The company launches two collections a year, which it refreshes with small capsules. The design of the garments is the responsibility of Moragues, supported by a team of eight people in its Madrid offices. The tailoring is done entirely in Spain, a value for the brand that means, at the same time, reducing its margins. “Our margins are small. We sell coats for more than €300, a high price, but it is very tight. It is increasingly difficult to manufacture in Spain, but we try not to raise the price of the product too much,“ he concludes.

Sixty percent of sales are generated through ecommerce, 30 percent come from the company’s own points of sale and the remaining 10 percent are generated through wholesale. After Spain, the bulk of sales come from the United States and the United Kingdom. Italy, France, Germany and Portugal maintain “a relevant position” in Europe. Markets such as Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Australia are also beginning to emerge.

From architect to fashion designer

The Madrid-born Andrea Moragues is an interior architect by training. In 2017, she settled in India, a country where by then she missed a women’s fashion offer that represented her. And she started knitting blazers as a hobby. “It’s my fetish garment, the one that gets me out of any trouble,“ she recalls. Two years later she returned to Spain and rejected the idea of going back to work as an architect in a studio to give life to the idea she had started as a hobby in India.

“It was always clear to me that if I started a project, it had to be in Spain. Making clothes here allows you to be on top of the process and make sure of the quality. I think we have to support the made in Spain,“ he says. However, he recalls how he found it difficult to find workshops that manufactured in low volume. “I tried to explain to them that I didn’t want a massive brand, but a personal proposal,“ he says. At that point, he found a workshop that currently continues to cover 80% of its production.

Byan has placed at the center of its proposal, as a sign of identity, the American blazers with velvet lapels of which it produces limited units. “We offer timeless fashion, which does not understand age, to buyers who see the product as an investment,“ explains Moragues. “It is made to last over time, to escape fast fashion,“ he adds.