Los Angeles-based fashion house Amiri is to design the formal wear of FC Barcelona – the current Spanish Liga 1 champions, and one of the most decorated clubs in the soccer world.
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The winner of a record 80 domestic trophies, and of 23 European and worldwide titles, Barcelona is one of the most glamorous clubs on the planet. Its players have won the Ballon d’Or, the most prestigious individual prize in association football, the most for any professional team. Including 12 times for male players – like soccer legends Lionel Messi and Johan Cruyff – and three times for women players.
“The Amiri x FC Barcelona partnership begins with the 2024/2025 season, marking the start of an ongoing collaboration between Amiri and FC Barcelona. Both sides view it as a long-term relationship — one rooted in shared values of innovation, craftsmanship, and global excellence,” Amiri told FashionNetwork.com.
Founded in 2014 by Mike Amiri, a Beverly Hills High School graduate, the brand Amiri began specializing in stage outfits for musicians in California, before developing a first capsule collection.
By 2018, Amiri began staging runway shows during the Paris menswear season. One year later, Renzo Rosso’s OTB took a minority stake in the LA brand.
By 2020, Amiri had opened its first flagship on Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, while Amiri was nominated four times for Menswear Designer of the Year at the annual CFDA Awards in New York.
Today, Amiri boasts a network of 31 boutiques, and retails in over 150 sales points in the U.S., Europe, Gulf and Asia.
The linkup with Barcelona, “marks the first partnership of its kind for Amiri, uniting with a global icon in sport, and bringing a distinctly Hollywood vision of modern luxury to one of the world’s most celebrated football institutions,” the brand noted.
This partnership also unites a 21st-century label and a club with 125 years of history, respecting tradition and heritage.
The brand will provide FC Barcelona custom suiting for all players, across both their men’s and women’s teams, alongside club executives and leadership.
“The tailoring created for FC Barcelona is exclusive to the club and will not be available for public sale. Each piece was made-to-measure for the players and staff, combining Amiri’s signature relaxed Californian tailoring with nods to the club’s heritage through custom pinstripe fabrics and deep navy tones,” Amiri told FashionNetwork.com.
Inspiration is drawn directly from the colors of the players’ strip. Dressed in rich blue and garnet for over a century, the club is also known as equip blaugrana – the blue and garnet team. Marrying signature Amiri style with the distinct identity of FC Barcelona, for the Winter season Amiri uses the club’s deep navy blue as the primary shade on precisely tailored wool six-button overcoats, as well as tailored jackets – double-breasted for men, single-breasted for women – and gently flared trousers in a fine white-on-navy pinstripe wool.
For summer tailoring, pinstripe also appears on a new shirt-collar classic blouson, an iconic Amiri style inspired by sportswear, translated to formalwear, and here returned to sports, detailed with MA Monogram embroidery on the breast pocket.
Lightweight, sports-silhouette knits with contrast MA Monogram and tonal FC Barcelona embroidery round out the wardrobe for summer, while for winter pinstripe poplin shirts are teamed with a garnet and blue-striped tie and gold bar tie clip.
Ami Paris is continuing its flagship opening programme but instead of Europe, this time it has turned its attention to Asia with a debut in Seoul. It has just opened its new multi-level flagship in the heart of Hannam at 45, Itaewon-ro 55ga-gil, Yongsan-gu.
Ami Paris, Seoul
And it said this “signals a meaningful evolution for the brand’s retail experience: spanning over 425 sq m, it stands as Ami Paris’s largest flagship globally, introducing a Parisian wardrobe and gathering place rooted in the timeless principles of Korean Hanok architecture”.
It added that the space “embraces Seoul’s cool contemporary soul, connecting with a culturally rich neighborhood and a style-attentive crowd who value effortless elegance, art, and discovery”.
Intended to be more than a traditional boutique, the venue is conceived as an “urban haven and welcoming residence, representing a respectful adaptation to the local context, with a unique sense of intimacy and togetherness”.
It’s certainly an interesting design. Visitors are guided from the street through an underground passage, emerging into the Ami Garden (“a curated oasis of local flora including rowan and maple trees”) before “ascending to the main entrance. This transitional ritual marks a shift from the city’s pace to a serene, breathing space”.
The design concept is based in traditional Hanoks, “creating a cosy atmosphere through a refined interplay of materials: dark oak, granite, and Maljat stone, accented by Ami Paris’s signature elements of beige limewash, gold, champagne gold and mirror finishes”.
Custom wooden furniture and low-slung seating areas are designed to invite visitors to linger, while bespoke paper lighting, evocative of traditional Hanji, “bathes the interiors in a soft, diffused glow”.
The store also inaugurates an artist residency in collaboration with the Pipe Gallery. Talents “will be invited to engage with the space, ensuring the Ami Paris home remains a dynamic site of cultural conversation”.
At launch, the presentation features the work of Korean-French contemporary artist Chansong Kim.
The unpredictability involved in doing business with the US has come into sharper relief with the threat of new tariffs being applied to UK exports. And international delivery specialist ParcelHero said Britain’s small businesses “will be the first casualties of [President] Trump’s new Greenland tariff war”.
Donald Trump at the White House, Washington, D.C. (United States), 16 January 2026 – AFP
Any new tariffs come after extra duties were already imposed last year while the de minimis exemption was abolished.
In 2024, the UK exported around $828m-worth of textiles such as clothing to the US. Most of these products will have had a value of under $800 and that de minimis abolition will have had a huge impact.
But even those business selling luxury goods that didn’t previously qualify for zero duties under the de minimis rule have been hit hard already.
ParcelHero said that the UK currently has one of the most favourable US tariff rates of 10%, following a trade deal with the country, but “even so, a UK-made coat costing $800 is already likely to cost US shoppers at least an extra $80 (£60) more than it did at the beginning of 2025, assuming that the UK seller passed on all the tariff costs to their US customers. That may not be the only applicable tariff, however, as it could also attract a further tax depending on the item’s tariff code.”
With the new tariff threat just issued, from the beginning of February, “that same coat could cost American consumers around $960 due to the imposition of a further 10% tariff. More concerningly still, from June it could cost them more than $1,000, as February’s 10% tariff rises to 25%. UK specialist and family-run businesses will struggle to survive in the US market as American shoppers turn to cheaper products from elsewhere”.
Parcelhero thinks Trump’s tariff threat over Greenland will particularly impact small UK businesses — which are less able to absorb extra costs and to have the mega-marketing budgets to cement their desirability in consumers’ minds — disproportionately.
The company’s head of consumer research, David Jinks, said he “agrees with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that the imposition of new tariffs on the UK and seven other countries that oppose Trump’s plans to take control of Greenland is ‘completely wrong’.
“Many smaller UK exporters are already reeling from the impact of the 10% tariff imposed on the majority of UK products last year. On top of that came the axing of the US de minimis tariff exemption that previously enabled British goods valued at $800 (around £600) or under to enter America duty free. Britain’s SME manufacturers and exporters are likely to be the first casualties of Trump’s new tariff war. Many smaller UK companies may have to quit the US market entirely if the Greenland tariffs are imposed.
“The US is Britain’s largest single overseas market and in 2024, before Trump announced his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in April 2025, around 39,500 UK VAT-registered businesses exported goods to the US. Many of these are SME businesses and marketplace traders that are disproportionately affected by the new tariffs.”
And the company thinks that if the tariffs are applied, it will mean a wider move towards tariffs globally. “Whatever the ongoing impact of new US tariffs, the repeal of its de minimis rules and a potential tit-for-tat trade war over Greenland, we are inevitably looking at a period of continuing volatility and changes to US shipments,” Jinks added.
Matalan is the latest big-name UK retailer to report on the Golden Quarter as well as the narrower festive season and it appears to have done well late last year.
It said that in Q3 (the three months ended 28 November) EBITDA was up 38% year-on-year “reflecting sales growth and market share gains”.
The fashion and homewares retailer said that pre-IFRS16 EBITDA jumped to £27 million during the quarter on the back of like-for-like sales growth of 2%, coupled with its ongoing focus on margin and efficiencies. This builds on the strong momentum delivered in H1 2026, with pre-IFRS16 EBITDA up 53% to £61 million in the financial year to date.
Its digital performance was “very strong” in Q3, with like-for-like sales up 11% and Black Friday delivering its strongest ever online sales day outside of the pandemic. That reflects the firm’s heavy investment in this channel of late and with a new native app due to launch later this year alongside a refreshed loyalty scheme, it’s clearly expecting the outperformance to continue.
But its stores are a key part of its investment programme too and in particular, during Q3, its refreshed stores outperformed the wider estate by 12%. The company didn’t detail how the stores performed overall but did say that it plans to upgrade 40 more locations in its next financial year.
As for the nine weeks up to 2 January, like-for-like sales rose 1%, which is below the 2% recorded for Q3 but coming against a backdrop in which many retailers reported falls, it’s not a bad result.
Categories including women’s outerwear and men’s formalwear and sportswear performed particularly well and the retailer said it gained market share across both women’s and men’s in the period, “reflecting the renewed product offer and significant improvements in brand perception”.
Overall, it “outperformed the wider market in October through to December, delivering year-on-year sales growth ahead of peers”.
Executive chair Karl-Heinz Holland said: “Our business transformation continues to deliver tangible results, with another strong quarter of EBITDA performance, alongside a return to sales growth. This reflects our relentless focus on delivering better quality, style and value, underpinned by sustained investment in product, stores and digital. This has enabled us to outperform the market, despite a challenging trading backdrop. Looking ahead, we look forward to welcoming our new CEO next month and remain confident in the business delivering sustainable profitable growth.”
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