MILAN — A group of devoted fans camped outside the FiveFourFive flagship in Milan starting about 48 hours before its opening last Thursday.

The excitement reached its peak the night before, fueled by midnight snacks, until the moment the window decal — blocking their view of the space — was removed, and the doors swung open at 10:30 a.m.

Located on Via Fiori Chiari in the arty Brera district, the 968-square-foot store is the first permanent retail destination for the Italian post-streetwear brand and the culmination of six years of building a community that has fueled its rapid growth.

It also marks FiveFourFive’s first step in maturity, beyond the “creator brand” label one could easily associate it with. The menswear company was established in 2020 by Luca Santeramo, a social media personality known as Sante to his community of almost 360,000 followers on Instagram alone.

After university, Santeramo simply sought to provide himself and friends with the wardrobe-building pieces he thought were missing from the market and toyed with the idea of launching a fashion brand. Marco Amodio joined and cofounded the venture.

“The first drop sold out within minutes. And all the releases that followed were also selling out fast,” Santeramo, who serves as the brand’s creative director, said in an interview at the store.

Entirely direct-to-consumer from the get-go, FiveFourFive has since linked with brands including Golden Goose — which shares the same community-driven approach — for capsules and in-store activations; with Swarovski on the four-item capsule collection “Crystal Storm” fronted by Italian singer Blanco, as well as Nude Project, the Spanish brand founded by Bruno Casanovas and Alex Benlloch.

FiveFourFive continues to launch monthly capsules, dropping one each third Thursday of the month at 5.45 p.m. CET — hence the brand name. It also introduced a permanent collection of carryovers a year ago.

“Goods were selling out fast anytime we were dropping them on the e-commerce. As a result, we were amassing about 200,000 sessions on the website, mostly as the site only read ‘new drop coming soon’,” said Amodio.

The community congregated around FiveFourFive reflects in part Santeramo’s following, but it’s clearly grown past that. “It’s always been very organic, with little to no advertisements or digital marketing. Luca’s personal brand certainly helped but then it’s been our unique selling proposition to win customers over,” Amodio said.

“Our goal is to offer the most qualitative product at the best value-for-money price,” Santeramo said. “There’s never a specific reference, it’s more about responding to the needs of my wardrobe for pieces that are missing,” he said about his design approach.

The collections span cool essentials — from loose jeans and pants to oversized, or cropped, shirts; bomber jackets, and hoodies — mostly crafted in Italy, except for 15 percent of production that is done abroad for specific merchandise categories.

After testing the retail waters with several pop-up activations globally — including last December’s takeover of Lucia Pizza, the American Italian eatery in New York’s SoHo, which followed earlier iterations in Naples, Florence, Rome, Forte dei Marmi, and Milan — the brand felt ready to open its first permanent home.

“Milan is the mecca, it’s where our home belongs,” Santeramo said.

“We wanted the space to feel like home. Our community needs to enjoy the space as if they were roaming around their living room,” echoed Amodio.

The minimalist white box of a space — with spare walls and visible piping on the ceiling — is filled with statement-making decor, from the deep red carpeting, travertine marble archway between the two rooms, bulbous lighting, and walnut wood paneling and displays. Chrome accents run throughout.

The store, developed by design firm Studio Musa helmed by Francesca Malagni and Rebecca Peretti, is enriched with the first FiveFourFive furniture piece: A cool sofa, designed by Luca Ricci, whose structure is made of clear fluted glass paired with red cushions. The item is on sale on a made-to-order basis.

The brand also collaborated with Horny Hi-Fi on a custom hi-fi system consisting of wooden loudspeakers surmounted by a second amplifier in sandblasted chrome. The tie-in is no coincidence — FiveFourFive plans to record its first vinyl record next summer and has a pop-up store in Paris lined up for June, timed with the Fête de la Musique, or Music Festival, in the French capital.

To be sure, FiveFourFive — which in 2025 had sales of 7 million euros — is courting European markets. It currently generates 70 percent of its sales in Italy, while the remainder is split between Europe, particularly Germany, and the U.S.

Investors have started knocking at the door, the two business partners said, but they have so far politely rejected offers, while remaining open to future opportunities.

“We don’t want to lose our authenticity, we believe we still have a lot to say,” Amodio said.