Inside Johanna Ortiz’s European Expansion

On Tuesday night, Johanna Ortiz presented her Fall/Winter 2026 collection in the ballroom of cultural center Círculo de Bellas Arte, kicking off Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid as its guest designer. The Spanish capital marks a shift from previous show locations of New York (resort 2019, resort 2020, and resort 2024) and Paris. But the move is more than a change of scenery. It signals the next leg in Ortiz’s growth strategy.

The designer launched her eponymous brand in her hometown of Cali, Colombia, in 2003. But today, its largest market is the US. Johanna Ortiz opened a standalone store on Madison Avenue in 2024, joining its three outposts in Colombia, around 200 wholesale doors, and a number of pop-ups the designer calls “caravans”. The next pop-up shop is slated to open in the Spanish resort city of Marbella this summer.

“[Pop-ups] are a nice way of knowing our customers, since our Johanna Ortiz model started as wholesale,” Ortiz tells me the morning of the show. We meet at private members’ club Metropolis, where she’s been hosting a trunk show out of a suite all week. “It’s more than just a shopping event — we turn it into an experience. We host cocktail parties, lunches, and moments of fun.”

Photo: Scarlett Casciello

Photo: Scarlett Casciello

Expanding to Europe and developing the direct-to-consumer (DTC) channel are key focuses for Ortiz. “Having a stronger presence in Europe is definitely one of my goals,” she says. “We were looking for the right moment, and I think that the right moment is coming.”

The brand currently generates 60% of its revenue from wholesale, down from 90% three years ago. The pivot to DTC has helped drive strong growth, according to the brand. Sales went from $17 million in 2024 to approximately $30 million in 2025. But for an artisanally led label like Johanna Ortiz, rapid growth can present production challenges. “We are trying to keep up since we are a vertically integrated company,” she says. “We manage the supply chain and produce everything in Colombia, and we’re still privately family-owned.”

Around 90% of products are made in Colombia, while knitwear is made in Peru and outerwear in Spain. The company employs 460 people across its atelier and operations in Colombia, about 78% of whom are women, and in 2016, launched a program called “Escuela Johanna Ortiz” to promote the development of sewing and embroidery skills among vulnerable populations and local artisans.