KOHLENBERG OPENS STORE, SPA
Byline: Pete Born
NEW YORK — Stanley Kohlenberg, one of the cosmetics industry’s most colorful and loquacious executives, is back.
Kohlenberg has a resume so well traveled that he can tell tales of working for two industry titans: Charles Revson and Helena Rubinstein.
One of his favorite anecdotes involves running into Madame Rubinstein as she angrily shook her fist and yelled across Fifth Avenue in the direction of Revson’s office. The founder of Revlon had aroused her wrath by introducing a new skin care line.
When Kohlenberg departed from his post as chief executive officer of Alfin Inc. in 1991, he was on his 24th job. He left the cosmetics industry to join his son-in-law in the gaming business.
Now the well-rehearsed manufacturer has reinvented himself — as a retailer. “This is my 25th and last job,” he said on Thursday, standing in his newly opened beauty store and spa.
Located at 140 East 34th Street, the Dumont Plaza Parfumerie and Le Petit Spa is a family business, with Kohlenberg serving as treasurer. His wife Ruth, an executive recruiter, is president. His son Howard, a former general manager at Cosmetics Plus and a fragrance concessionaire at Kmart, is general manager of the store. Howard’s wife, Christine, is creative director.
The store, which measures 2,000 square feet, is divided into two parts. In the back is Le Petit Spa, containing four treatment rooms. The front has the retail area, with an ambience that Kohlenberg describes as “a French parfumerie with a New York accent.”
Kohlenberg hired an artist, Randi Barr, to paint a trompe l’oeil Paris street scene on the back wall of the retail area.
“I wanted the environment to be entertaining or inviting,” he said, before launching into a theory. “The business in department stores has plateaued or is slipping,” he asserted. The future of cosmetics retailing in the U.S. belongs to innovative retailers like Sephora who “can create the right environment,” he argued.
Kohlenberg’s strategy is to bring in exclusive lines, mostly from France. One is Aquatonale, a thalassotherapy spa line from Saint Malo. Another is Innoxa, a vitamin-enriched color and treatment brand. A third is Fernand Aubry. And a fourth is Jean Claude Biguine, a makeup line spawned by a global salon chain.
In addition, there will be mainstream prestige vendors such as Chanel, Givenchy, Guerlain, Lancaster, Liz Claiborne, Jean Patou and Sanofi. Decleor products will be used in the spa. Absent from the lineup will be the Estee Lauder brands and Calvin Klein.
The store will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
Kohlenberg estimates the business can generate $2 million at retail the first year, with perhaps 60 percent generated by the spa. The investment totals at least $500,000. “I now owe everybody under the sun,” he chuckled.
Although Kohlenberg protested that this is only a little family business, he soon brought the bigger picture into focus.
The store and spa are located in a townhouse that is a residential wing of the Dumont Plaza Hotel, which is part of a 10-hotel group, the Manhattan East Suite Hotels. Kohlenberg has set up a pilot program, delivering beauty products and providing spa services to individual rooms in three of the hotels. Guests can order a massage, facial and cosmetics makeover, as well as anything sold in the store. The fee will be charged to the room bill, freeing Kohlenberg’s staff from having to collect.
If it works, he says, the service will be rolled out to all 10 hotels.