Tomorrow comes for Samuel Ross – VOGUE BUSINESS
Tue 20 Feb
Samuel Ross (left) with art director William Slocombe and brand director Liam Hassimi, who will creatively lead the brand. Photo Courtesy of A-COLD-WALL*
BY LUKE LEITCH
Samuel Ross was 20 years old when he began work as Virgil Abloh’s first-ever intern. His duties included a then-unlaunched brand concept named Off-White. Today, 12 years on, Ross reveals the 100 per cent sale of A-Cold-Wall — the brand he founded in 2015 — to his previously minority partner Tomorrow Ltd.
"The terms of the sale reflect a strong future for A-Cold-Wall*. What began as a bedroom startup nine years ago is now a global business with multiple concept stores.”
Samuel Ross, Founder of A-COLD-WALL*
While Ross and Stefano Martinetto, co-founder and CEO of Tomorrow Ltd, do not disclose the precise terms of the private deal, Martinetto shares that the GMV (total revenue before deductions) of A-Cold-Wall amounted to £16 million in 2023. “It’s been amicable and fair. The terms of the sale reflect a strong future for A-Cold-Wall. What began as a bedroom startup nine years ago is now a global business with multiple concept stores,” says Ross.
After first serving as the label’s licensed distribution partner and hitting 52 doors by the end of 2017, Tomorrow Ltd made its first minority investment in A-Cold-Wall back in 2018. “That was the very beginning of a new business model for us,” adds Martinetto.
Since then, Tomorrow has emerged as a dynamic incubator of emerging brands across fashion, executing key operational functions from manufacturing to distribution, while affording its creative partners the freedom to develop their brand identities. Other Tomorrow investments since A-Cold-Wall include Coperni, Martine Rose, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, Colville and artist Daniel Arsham’s apparel project Objects IV Life. It was also an early partner of Ambush, before the label was acquired by New Guards Group. In 2020, it invested in the progressive London retailer Machine-A.
Samuel Ross with Stefano Martinetto
“We are talking about a full acquisition today, and our most recent deals have been majority investments."
Stefano Martinetto, Tomorrow London CEO
Martinetto says that while that earliest investment in A-Cold-Wall was for a minority stake, “We are talking about a full acquisition today, and our most recent deals have been majority investments. The reasoning behind this is that the resources needed to launch and protect a brand are way more than in the past. And through doubling down with the winners, we see opportunities.”