Editor’s Note
This excerpt from an interview with Patrick Chalhoub reveals the personal origins of a major luxury group. It began not with a grand corporate plan, but with a father’s passion for French craftsmanship in a Damascus watch shop in 1955, setting a family legacy in motion.
Patrick Chalhoub: My father started his business in 1955, in Damascus, Syria. At the time, he was employed in a store that sold watches and he had this love for France. He wanted to share this passion and this art of living. One day, he dined with the wife of the Argentine ambassador who complained about not being able to find quality silverware in Syria. My father had heard of Christofle, it was a trigger in my parents’ minds. They opened a boutique in Damascus to sell Christofle. Very quickly, they represented Baccarat, Bernardaud… Then he began traveling through the Gulf countries in 1960, before the oil boom. He went to offer our products to the ruling families, but not only, to merchant families as well. My parents remained faithful to French luxury and refinement. We were a bit like the ambassadors of French brands in this region of the world. We created this link between two cultures. In addition, we became their distributors, their retailers, their partners.
Especially fashion and beauty. We are very strong in beauty, we have market shares of 40 to 50%. We started by connecting distributors with customers. We inaugurated the first Louis Vuitton boutique in the Middle East, in Kuwait in 1983. In the 1990s, we started buying and selling, we did import and distribution, especially of perfumes. In the 2000s, we began opening more retail stores. Today, we have 800 stores in the Middle East. Then we developed e-commerce sites, we have 60 today.
It’s a concept we created ourselves and opened ten years ago in the Dubai Mall shopping center. The ambition is to be the most inspiring store for women who love shoes. It started from the observation that in stores, even those owned by brands, the section reserved for shoes is never big enough.
The evolution is both rapid, because the market is growing quite quickly thanks to a new clientele, and slow to set in. There has been a generational change, the youth has a real appreciation for luxury. Distribution has also evolved. Today, there is not a single renowned luxury brand that does not have a store in the Middle East, at least in Dubai. And there are exceptional shopping centers. Last year, Dubai Mall received 105 million visitors!
Now, brands offer products adapted to this market… Ramadan is like Christmas. Most brands today create special collections. At Christofle, we made 60 trays with Arabic calligraphy.
Christofle had difficult times and we are loyal to the people who work with us. We took over a beautiful sleeping company with the will to move forward, to enhance Christofle.
Yes. But we must first take good care of our core business at a time when the Middle East is bubbling, it’s fantastic. We also need to question what our added value is, to understand what data, artificial intelligence, NFTs, web 3.0 are. The main thing is to continue looking for new brands to be a force of proposal, in franchise or partnership. We just signed with Jacquemus for example. We also have the ambition to build brands that come from the Middle East, without necessarily owning them. We are also developing in other parts of the world, in Africa and South America.
Covid was the best promoter of luxury e-commerce. We took the bet to put the consumer at the center, we must be able to inspire them and ensure we meet their demands. E-commerce represents 11 or 12% of our sales in luxury, which corresponds to the average in luxury and in the Middle East, where e-commerce represents 13% of turnover.
I would say that what allows us to succeed is to have around us people who are passionate and motivated. We opened an academy to teach retail fifteen years ago. We believe in humans, we believe in people.
With my brother Anthony, we took over our parents’ business in the early 2000s and then he left us five years ago. Now, I have my two children working with us and one of my nephews hopes to join us this year. That said, it’s based on merit, they must be able to bring value to continue developing. Our group now has 15,000 people.