MILAN — The Mytheresa womenswear store in Munich is reopening Thursday, redesigned under the creative director of Studio Baciocchi, and no detail has been left to chance.
In an exclusive interview, Michael Kliger, chief executive officer of Mytheresa parent LuxExperience, said that, once again, he turned to the Italian design studio, founded by architect Roberto Baciocchi, after its first renovation of the store in 2018 and to be aligned with the menswear unit it redesigned in 2023.
“We are very pleased with their work, they understand our audience and who we serve, who our customer is and how she shops. Also, I was always very impressed by Baciocchi because I can say that every project we’ve done so far, they came up with a different architecture, a different style, which I like, because it is really contemporary. They don’t have a fixed design style,” explained Kliger.
“Each time we worked with them, they came up with new materials, and you can really see that they spend a lot of time understanding what is the trend of the moment, because there are fashion cycles also in interior design.”
Located in Munich’s city center at Maffeistraße 3, the store spans across three floors and almost 13,000 square feet.
The ground floor is marked by brown carpeting, travertine, silver nickel, handcrafted textiles, mirrors and glass blocks, displaying shoes, bags, ready-to-wear, leather goods and accessories.
Eveningwear and fine jewelry are available on the second level, with warm wooden flooring and mirrored fitting room columns, while contemporary brands are carried in the lower ground floor, characterized by aluminum mesh ceilings and illuminated columns.
Kliger enthused about the amber glass, the mirrors and warmer wood used in the store compared with the marble previously employed. “It’s not that eight years ago it was wrong, but eight years ago was eight years ago, and now we are now,” he said.
“I believe you have to redo a store every eight years and, of course, we are privileged at LuxExperience as we only have two stores, but at the same time we have the [funds] and I think for us as a group continuing to invest in the store was very important because we truly believe in luxury. We truly are committed to luxury and it’s not about the store versus the website, it’s good versus not good. So, we also wanted to show how we approach the store and that we have a strong luxury commitment, also to physical,” Kliger continued.
The store reported net sales of 14.4 million euros in 2025. Mytheresa carries luxury brands ranging from Celine, Bottega Veneta, Loewe, Prada and Miu Miu to Gucci, Valentino, Balenciaga, Dolce & Gabbana, Chloé, Khaite and Moncler, among others. Exclusively to Munich, it also sells Phoebe Philo, The Row, Alaïa, Sacai, Toteme, Guest in Residence, and Manolo Blahnik.
Start With the Customer
Kliger underscored the relevance of the store, which first opened in 1987, as the foundation of what was to become LuxExperience. This also includes Mytheresa’s profitable and growing luxury e-commerce website and, since last year, Yoox, Net-a-porter and Mr Porter.
LuxExperience, which is based in Munich, reported improved profitability and full-price selling, better margins and heightened cost savings through streamlining over the fiscal third quarter ended March 31. Net sales for the quarter reached 618 million euros at constant currency, which was flat to last year’s quarter. Gross merchandise sales grew 0.3 percent, at constant currency, to 654 million euros.
“The mindset of the Mytheresa stores is that of LuxExperience, with the same approach to customers,” the executive pointed out.
Indeed, Kliger said that with Studio Baciocchi the first step is always “to start with the customer” and to identify the flow of traffic, choosing where to place the cash register and the fitting rooms.
“There’s no doorman and everyone can come in, so the door is always open. That’s our approach to luxury. It’s luxury, it’s expensive, of course, but it’s inclusive,” contended Kliger. “Also, it’s very important that as you enter, you see the staircase. There is a typical behavior in 90 percent of people that go into a store, they start to go left, it’s just human. Look at any supermarket, the entrance is to the right and the cash register on the left, because most people take a left turn through a store. It’s an organic way of how people move, and you need to accommodate that.”
He underscored the relevance of fitting rooms, which need to be in a more quiet area. “You don’t want to be in a fitting room where it’s loud. You want to have some privacy, and it’s important to have privacy also when you come out of the fitting room, because you want to show a friend what you look like.”
Another conviction is that racks should never be too full, “because it doesn’t feel like luxury,” so different sizes and colors should be in the back. The furniture is exclusively designed for the store by Studio Baciocchi.
Mytheresa in Munich caters mainly to locals, and for this reason it is key to change windows and displays every two weeks, “but not the placements, people hate that. All this is no secret sauce,” Kliger said.
Also, Kliger prefers to stay away from the excessive use of technology or AI here. “We want to convey the feeling to our local customers that they own the store, so we don’t want to make it a test lab. This is where it all started, and today we are a 2.6 billion euros company, so we are very respectful of the store.”
Not About Channels
Customers are “the only reason multibrand stores exist, so the focus is on customers, they decide where to shop and we have to understand how to serve them,” the CEO said.
This can be challenging because they are increasingly knowledgeable and informed about the products. Hence, working in shifts, there are 40 employees in the store that “need to offer honest advice, understand how much time customers have, and sell without selling.”
In any case, Kliger believes “consumers don’t think in terms of channels,” and he doesn’t see Mytheresa competing with the monobrand stores in the city, as the customer is different, he opined.
Also, he touted the relationship with luxury brands, while protecting the integrity of Mytheresa.
“We work together with brands. We are very privileged. We have the best luxury selection in stores in Germany, and of course, each brand has their own merchandising guidelines, and they have developed concepts of how to present the product, how to present the bags, and we are very respectful. The only thing is, this is a multibrand store, so we don’t create corners, we don’t create shop-in-shops,” said Kliger.
“This is an overall store, all the fittings look the same, so this is a fundamental belief of a multibrand store that you are not real estate, you’re not a model, you will create your own curation, but within, we work together. And we listen, and of course we want to be respectful, but also want to be successful, so the brands have a great knowledge of what is selling well, because they have so many retail stores that they sometimes have good insights, so we do whatever we can do, but it’s a multibrand store.”
Kliger is resisting the siren song of F&B or other experiential opportunities in the store, which may be more logical for tourists with time on their hands.
“That’s why we do events and pop-ups, when and where our customers have time as in the South of France or the Hamptons,” he said. “For us it’s really a demonstration of the mindset of LuxExperience, an example of the approach that is really about serving customers, and not being boxed in channels. We will be in the Caribbean in the summer. We definitely feel physical is important. It’s about omnipresence, but we want to be tactical about presence. I don’t want to be 12 months in the Hamptons, I don’t need to be 12 months there. I want to be present when our customers are there and when they are open to be hosted.”
