Watch the full interview here

PRINTABLE VERSION HERE

*2020-2021 has been more than a period of pandemic and crisis: by its magnitude and lack of precedence, it has literally changed the world, especially the retail world, by changing habits: digitalisation and new purchasing habits, work from home and the question of commuting, notion of essential vs. non-essential goods.

The IADS launched a series of interviews with innovative thinkers to understand their views on how to deal with such changes. All organisations have proved their resilience and ability to cope with the emergency of the situation, however, it is a very human thing to tend to come back to habits whenever possible. What happened? How can we make the most of what we learnt and how can we make sure our organisations and thinking processes are durably impacted?*

Introduction: Chafik Gasmi, founder of Chafik Studio

For this session, we welcomed Chafik Gasmi, based in Paris and founder of architectural company Chafik Studio.

Chafik Gasmi, 59, launched his first designer’s furniture line in 1990, just after graduating from the Ecole d’Achitecture de Paris. This line was awarded the Grand Prix at the Paris Salon du Meuble in 1992. Following this initial success, his projects were selected by the French State to furnish the Prime Minister offices.

In 1996, the founder of Sephora, Dominique Mandonnaud, asked Chafik Gasmi to design the Sephora flagship boutique in Champs Elysées, to help him bring his vision alive. This was Chafik Gasmi’s first venture in cosmetics, and ended up in a mix of architecture, design, cosmetics, with a true customer-oriented vision. Then, after LVMH acquired Sephora in 1997, Gasmi was appointed as the artistic director for Sephora and personal advisor of Mr Arnault for several brands on branding and retail experience, including Kenzo, Guerlain or Dior. After a stint as Artistic Director at Baccarat, he created Chafik Studio in 2004. In 2010, he initiated a long-term relationship with Lancôme as well as with Fendi Casa.

Nowadays, Chafik Studio is a multidisciplinary structure, with competencies ranging from architecture, interior design, product design, retail design and artistic direction. The company is involved in hotels, department stores, retail spaces, furniture and objects, and is able to work with both corporate companies and family businesses.

Part 1 – Dealing with innovation

*IADS - Chafik, your studio is renowned for its groundbreaking approach, yet always keeping in mind the needs of customers, which explains why you have developed so many retail concepts with the biggest brands. How do you foster this creativity on a daily basis?*

Chafik Gasmi - First of all, the most important, and this is common to both family businesses and corporate companies, I always deal with the person who ultimately pays for the project, not intermediaries, even if they hold top positions. Innovation is always very difficult and can generate anxiety. For me, it is easier to talk about changing rules with the guy who pays, rather than how to deal with the rules with the guy who executes.

When it comes to my method, I always look at things in a very fresh, almost childlike way. In other words, we force ourselves to be naïve, curious, and ask questions, to make sure we see things differently, challenge the status quo, and get excited in the way. The idea is not to be different for the sake of it, but to generate a tension based on trust, within a reassuring framework.

Innovation can generate anxiety and trust is key to taming the feeling of danger.

*IADS - How do you manage creativity within your organisation? How are ideas generated and with what process? Also, how do you onboard newcomers in your organisation and make sure they fit with your mindset?*

CG - First of all, I avoid creating a silo between my team and my customers. We design the brief together, because the answer is often in the question. If you do not take part in the question elaboration, you will miss something in the answer.

Then, once the brief is done, we do the first meeting with our clients in our studio. During this “project session”, we work together on rewording the brief and gathering the ideas. Everyone sketches their ideas, which at the end I personally synthesise. The goal is to reach a very strong, clear and simple idea, coming from a series of interactions between everyone, including words, sketches, feelings.

Once the idea is here and we are ready to launch the project, we gather all the people who will be involved at one stage or another (contractors, third parties, middle management…) in a room to explain the project. During that moment, we identify in advance all the blocking elements and kill negative thinking. It is all about resolving all opposition at the launch instead of fine-tuning along the development phase, to keep the project strong and fresh. Any other approach invariably ends in concessions and compromises, which always dilutes ideas.

Given the level of interaction with which we work, I must say that Covid-19 has been a difficult period as we lost a lot of the intuitions we usually get from interactions. Video conferencing helps in the thinking process, but not on the perception of feelings. This is why we took a step aside and seized the opportunity to think about our own processes, organisation… to be ready for better days in terms of operations. Covid-19 has been quite difficult for creativity itself I must admit.

Part 2– Retail

*IADS – Coming back on your statement that “answers are usually in the question”, what was the answer in the 1996 Sephora store question, and are these answers still valid for 2022? What would you change if you had to do this project again?*

CG- The challenge at the time was to create a brand, Sephora, where “everything about beauty could be found”. The founder wanted to mix the ease of use from supermarkets, and the feeling of luxury, without being gimmicky. The question was therefore to combine the best of both worlds. In addition, he wanted to create a fascinating and impactful space, like a Versailles-meets-Disneyland idea.

This combination of ideas was a fantastic vision! I related this project to the idea of a religious place, like a “temple of beauty”. I wanted to come back to fundamental symbols that are universally understood. In the end we came up with a black and white store, where you do not see furniture, only products and brands. The original building had some columns for structural reasons, and we created new fake ones to create a rhythm and give the feeling of a temple.

From the merchandising point of view, we created gondolas which allowed us to give visibility and perspective. There was no signage, the zoning was defined by colours and lighting, in a very organic manner.

Today, Sephora is a fantastic selling machine but the point of sales itself may have lost some of its soul. I feel that a part of the magic has been lost, even though the store is extremely efficient from a business perspective. Efficiency is needed but should be completed by an unexpected details, an intention, to really touch the customer. For instance, in the store, in 1996, we wrote poems on the columns that could be visible only if you were extremely close to them.

*IADS- You have collaborated with Lancôme for almost a decade now and accompanied them in the evolution of their retail concept. It is the same thing with Kenzo showroom. What where the key learnings for you when it comes to organising retail (or wholesale)?*

CG – I left Sephora and LVMH because I really wanted to do my job and be an architect. I designed hotels, museums… but I then realized how much I had learnt from retail. Nothing is more sophisticated than retail when it comes to building a space. When I built the Modern Art Museum in Algiers, I recalled my learnings from Sephora when considering the traffic flow within the building. It had truly been a virtuous circle.

When Lancôme reached out in 2012, I wanted to challenge them, and go beyond the architecture of their stores, to work on the architecture of the brand itself. Why? The store is the place where all aspects of the brand are conveyed, but in the case of Lancôme, the brand itself was fragmented and not fully coherent.

At the time, the brand was led by Sue Nabi and she was ready and able to change the rules, which is why she took the chance. Then the adventure continued with her successor Françoise Lehmann. For more than 10 years we were able to bring together the brand to another level. It was all about generating change by asking the right questions, pointing out the incoherences. It is not about doing the work of people, but helping them to grow.

Interestingly, what I realized is that when you are successful, you not only attract the attention of your clients, prospective ones, competitors, but also talents. These 10 years at Lancôme helped my agency to attract great individuals and allow us to grow, expand and look at new projects.

Part 3 - Department Stores

*IADS – You once mentioned that, for you, Department Stores are “decathletes”, do you want to explain your vision behind this phrase? What does a department store stand for you and to what extent do you consider it special (or not)?*

CG – Department stores were challenged twenty years ago by specialty chains such as Sephora, especially from the point of view of their location.

While specialty stores (and later, brands) have the possibility to choose their location, often going for the top ones, department stores have, by essence, to make arbitration and choices about the location they give to brands within their own spaces. Multiply this by the number of locations, possibilities and floors, and you have a handicap for department stores when it comes to the attractivity of their offer seen as a whole, compared to the easiness of access and appeal of specialty stores (not even talking about logistics, service or product range depth).

However, today, after the pandemic, now that digital is part of our lives, size matters. Convenience stores are being swamped by e-commerce. The only way to create a difference is to be big and to have many things, create excitement, events, make people feel they are part of a bigger community. The best in that race are obviously department stores!

However, they still have difficulties to behave as a unified place, rather than an addition of floors or a “vertical street”. The issue is not how to give the same feeling on each floor, but how to make sure that the idea behind the very concept of the department store is felt and palpable as one experience, at the entire building level. For instance, the concept of Galeries Lafayette at the beginning was to be an architectural destination, as the most beautiful place in the city, a monument. You started to shop after having seen the cupola at the Haussmann store. Because the department store was a monument, it became inevitable.

A department store is not a juxtaposition of clearly separated activities which is currently the case at La Samaritaine with a hotel clearly cut from the store itself. It should be a fusion, a mingling of activities under one name, one destination, one experience. For me, the future of department stores is the hotel activity. A hotel where you can shop whatever you want, whenever you want and however you want, is way more exciting than a store where you can stay.

*IADS – Who or what would you consider as exciting when it comes to retail?*

CG – In terms of brands, probably Apple, thanks to the level of service. But you do not sleep in an Apple store. I dream of a store that is accessible 24/7, where you can live. In other words, a hotel turned into a department store. It is all about living an experience, or renting a usage, rather than simply buying something. Alternatively, the metaverse opens unlimited possibilities in terms of architecture, usage, consumption, business…

*IADS – What is the future of retail?*

CG – Hotels!

Credits: IADS (Selvane Mohandas)