Swimwear brand Gassa d’Amante expands in Europe, N America, aims to double revenue

The Gassa d’Amante stand was undoubtedly one of the most attractive at the latest edition of Pitti Uomo in Florence. Centre-stage was a real sailing boat that had been restored and repainted, like the cabin doors, found at the seaside resort of Celle Ligure, that acted as stage-setting. Gassa d’Amante is a start-up founded five years ago, based in Milan but with Ligurian roots. It produces swimwear, apparel (shirts, polo shirts and shorts), for adults and children, as well as handbags and assorted accessories like casual shoes and espadrilles. The brand’s two founders, brothers Andrea and Marco Rapetti, originally from Spotorno, near Savona, are driving Gassa d’Amante’s international expansion. Entrepreneurial culture is in their blood, as their family produces candied fruit, Savona chinotto (a soft drink) and mustard in Liguria.

“I’m the CEO, my brother Marco takes care of product development and retail installations. There are 14 months between us, we’re virtually twins,” said Andrea Rapetti. “Part of our team is new, after Matteo Scarselli joined the company. He deals with the commercial side of the business, as well as product and collection development. Our products are made in China, except for the new, garment-dyed line of T-shirts made by a sub-contractor in Veneto,” he added. 

The sub-contractor uses real fruit and flower pulp for the dyes, which are said to be so natural that the pulp produced for dyeing could be suitable for human consumption. The T-shirts are dyed with natural ingredients derived from rosemary, wine, orange, rose, indigo, cocoa, curry spices, black carrot, lemon, and iris.

The brand has operational offices in Liguria, and the business has developed between Liguria and Milan. “We started with a dream, and now have a national retail presence,” said Rapetti. “At the latest Pitti Uomo show, we received orders from the USA and from all over Europe, notably Belgium, Spain and Portugal. We also have distributors in Russia,” he added. Gassa d’Amante produces a summer collection only, and is starting to acquire an international dimension, precisely because it evokes the notion of nautical lifestyle and fine Italian living. Revenue has been doubling year-on-year, according to Rapetti.

“First we want to consolidate our position, then we’ll add womenswear and a winter collection,” said Rapetti. Gassa d’Amante is Italian for a bowline knot, one of the most useful knots in yachting, also used for climbing. It is very easy to tie, and hard to untie accidentally. “We’re available at Galeries Lafayette in France. We have a permanent concession in Paris, and we’re present in 14 other leading stores, in chains like Rinascente and Coin in Italy, El Corte Inglés in Portugal, Kastner & Öhler in Austria, Attica in Greece. We’re beginning to have a satisfactory retail footprint, but we’re just getting started. We’re trying to boost our presence in Spain and the UK. And we’re getting plenty of enquiries from the USA and Canada,” explained Rapetti. As a digital-native company, Gassa d’Amante’s e-tail sales too are doubling year-on-year. 

Despite plans to extend the assortment, swimwear remains Gassa d’Amante’s signature and core business. For Spring/Summer 2027, the brand has developed 108 different patterns and colourways for its costumes.

Gassa d’Amante is now aiming to reach the €1 million revenue mark. It has recently opened four monobrand stores, leased on a seasonal six-monthly basis, in the Italian resorts of Porto Rotondo, Santa Margherita Ligure, Forte dei Marmi and Alassio. “We’ve already reached the targets we’d set for Alassio and Santa Margherita Ligure, and we’re only just starting,” said Rapetti.

The swimming costumes’ patterns are inspired by Italian art and locales. For example, the brand replicated the tile motif on the dome of the San Gennaro church in Praiano, on the Amalfi Coast, for the pattern of the Praiano models. Elsewhere, “we used floor and pavement patterns gleaned from seaside resorts, and even reproduced the outline of some of our wonderful Italian seaside cliffs,” concluded Rapetti.