Metro Boutique brings Urban Outfitters' brand Iets Frans to Switzerland

Swiss fashion retailer Metro Boutique has added the streetwear brand Iets Frans to its product range, becoming its exclusive brick and mortar stockist in Switzerland.

The label has been available online and in the retailer's stores since Saturday, Metro Boutique announced on Monday. To mark the launch, the company presented the collection with events in its stores in Basel; Bern; the Glatt shopping centre near Zurich; and the Balexert shopping centre in Vernier near Geneva. The events featured DJ sets, a photo booth, a station for creating keychains, and drinks. Selected content creators also attended the launch in the stores.

For Metro Boutique, this form of presentation is part of modern retail. Brands should not only be visible but also experienced, shared, and individually interpreted in-store. “With the launch of Iets Frans, we didn't just want to present the brand as a new addition to our range, but make it directly tangible,” says Kevin Brunner, offline marketing manager at Metro Boutiques AG.

Iets Frans represents a casual aesthetic, striking silhouettes, bold colours, and distinctive logo details. “Iets Frans is a very good fit for what Metro Boutique stands for. Fashion should be fun, show personality, and sometimes take a different path,” says Linda Mathys, buyer at Metro Boutiques AG. The mix of current trends and a nostalgic perspective makes the brand “particularly exciting for our customers”.

Urban Outfitters' own brand

The announcement does not mention that Iets Frans is an own-brand of the US retailer Urban Outfitters, which belongs to the URBN group. The unisex label, inspired by vintage sportswear, was launched in 2017, as reported by the British trade publication The Industry. The name means 'something French' in Dutch.

Until now, the brand has primarily been sold through Urban Outfitters' own channels. In continental Europe, Iets Frans opened its first shop-in-shop in the retailer's Munich flagship store in 2020, followed by a standalone store on London's Carnaby Street in October of the same year. At that time, the then European managing director, Emma Wisden, announced plans to explore wholesale partnerships to make the brand accessible to a larger and more international audience. According to the store locator on its website, Urban Outfitters does not operate any of its own stores in Switzerland. The nearest stores are located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Munich, and Milan.

This is not the first international brand that Metro Boutique has brought to Switzerland this year. In April, the retailer had already added Topshop to its range in four stores, also focusing on in-store activations. The company, founded in 1993 and based in Biel, operated 25 locations according to its own figures, following the opening of its Geneva store in June 2024.

This article was created with the help of AI.