MILAN — Italy’s luxury department store La Rinascente has given its flagship beauty floor a facelift.
The store, which overlooks the city’s cathedral in Piazza Duomo, completed a restyling of its ground-floor perfumery late last month when Dior opened its counters. The beauty and accessories floors of the flagship were officially unveiled at a recent party.
La Rinascente’s new chief executive officer, Vittorio Radice, described the beauty floor as “the heart and engine” of the store.
“It was hard work, but we are really happy with the results,” Radice said of the beauty floor, adding, “Some of the counters were specially designed for the store.”
Designed by India Mahdavi, the new look ground-floor interior features two black marble columns in the center and white marble floors. The perfumery department was expanded by nearly 16 percent during the redesign to 11,840 square feet.
New brands to La Rinascente’s beauty space include Jo Malone, Shu Uemura, Tom Ford, Kiehl’s and Culti. There’s also a wall dedicated to 16 niche fragrance brands. A corner dubbed “laboratory” has been added to the space and it spotlights 23 skin care lines positioned as natural brands. Of the 200 brands that La Rinascente’s beauty space features, Dior and Estée Lauder outfitted new and bigger counters, while Clarins added a private treatment cabine behind its counter.
Last year, the beauty floor in the Piazza Duomo location rang up 18 million euros, or $22.7 million, in sales. Radice said that figure could increase by double digits once this year’s tally is completed.
Beauty sales make up 12 percent of La Rinascente’s total turnover. Radice added that the renovations did not affect the floor’s sales, even though it remained open during the work period.
Simone Destefanis, manager of La Rinascente’s beauty and cosmetics division, said everything was in place to reap positive sales results for 2007.
“All the aspects of the department have been fine-tuned so well that we expect our customers to be spending more time and more money there, and we have high expectations for 2007,” said Destefanis.
In addition to the flagship perfumery, beauty floors in La Rinascente’s 15 other locations will also be renovated as part of a seven-year restructuring plan the company’s new owners Tamerice Srl, embarked on last year.
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A Padova location was recently remodeled, and it will be followed by locations in Florence and Rome next year.
Guerlain ‘Springs’ Into Books
PARIS — Beauty’s getting more bookish.
Guerlain, for one, is now selling in its French, Swiss, Belgian and Canadian boutiques a book called “Le Printemps de Guerlain,” written by Maryline Desbiolles. It is published by Le Cherche Midi and has an English-language version, “Spring at Guerlain.”
The 256-page book, whose text is inspired by Botticelli’s painting called “Spring” and the history of Guerlain, sells for 50 euros, or $66 at current exchange rates, in France.
“We thought it was the time to write about Guerlain in a different way,” said Renato Semerari, global president and chief executive officer of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-owned house. “The book is not written chronologically but comes from emotions and memories.”
Another recent beauty book to hit French bookstands plus French retailer Fnac, is “Des Epices au Parfum: Comment Les Epices Ont Ecrit L’Histoire des Hommes et des Parfums” (or, “From Spices to Fragrance: How Spices Wrote the Story of Men and Perfumes”). Written by Brigitte Bourny-Romagne in French, the 224-page book, which was published by Aubanel and backed by the Comite Francais du Parfum, takes a chronological look at spices and fragrance. It costs 40 euros, or $52.70.
“How was this work born?” asked Bourny-Romagne, who explained her fascination with travel and its link with fragrance. “I wanted to take a voyage through space and time,” she said. The book’s photographs were shot by Dominique Silberstein.— Jennifer Weil