First impressions are almost always misleading. Take for instance our first meeting with Philippe Charriol, president of the Philippe Charriol Group, a global luxury brand that specialises in watches and a wide range of fashion accessories including jewellery, glasses, pens, leather goods, and now perfumes.
Charriol meets us while seated regally on a throne-like chair, wearing an immaculately cut suit, his hair carefully coiffed, the huge sunglasses somewhat removing us from the man. I expected him to be stiff, a little cold and off-hand, a typical tycoon, in fact.
I couldn't have been more wrong. The sunglasses, it turned out, were to ward off the bright sunlight that flooded the glass room. The ‘throne' was for the photo op. His warm handshake and the twinkling eyes that were revealed once his glasses came off dispelled the rest of the myth.
Past perfect
More than a tycoon, Charriol identifies himself with the Renaissance man - how an outstandingly versatile, well-rounded person was described in the 18th century. "I very much admire the way the French developed the art of living in the 18th century," he smiles. "It was incredible in the sense of the refinement they brought to everything, whether architecture or the arts, why, even in their furniture. That's probably the ultimate standard, but I think at that time it was only for the elite. We have advanced quite a bit, but the level of refinement that they achieved we still can't seem to approximate. Of course, they had time on their hands."
Charriol, however, is not attempting to bring back that quality. "You can never bring back the past," he says. "I like those times and so I try to surround myself with relics from that era. That translates to my taste for beautiful objects. But if you try to approximate that in the products you create you realise it is not cost effective.
"I want my brand to aim at the medium high bracket in developed countries. And though my products may not be the most expensive, they certainly speak of quality and elegance."
Starting from the bottom
Charriol first earned his chops with Les Must de Cartier in 1973. He was with Cartier for 13 years and went on to become president of its Asian and North American subsidiaries.
"It was almost a quarter of a century ago. At that time the Cartier company was not what it is today," he reminisces. "It was the beginning of distribution across the world, with the Japanese moving out of their island and starting to buy brands like crazy, that was quite the golden era. In the beginning, at my time, there was only one item, the lighter, not the big brand everyone sees today. I learnt to push the brand by travelling - there was no one to teach me, I was both the teacher and the pupil. We were the pioneers in the segment - not elite, but more affordable luxury."
Going solo
Then at 40, Charriol decided to make a change to his lifestyle. "I had worked for different companies after university, I discovered a different world," he explains. "I took the Cartier brand around the world in those years. As the company became very big I started to lead a corporate life. I was certainly not 100 per cent happy. I had to decide if I was going to be a corporate man for the rest of my life or if I wanted to jump out and start my own venture."
Charriol decided to take the plunge, and it took him four years to launch. "I was lucky, because at that time I had some assets in America and the dollar was at its peak. It helped me start my new life - I created my own job, my own company, my own brand. I changed continents, I in fact changed everything except my wife! I moved on to a new life, which was also more interesting as I became one of the first to work more outside the office than in the office. I decided to live close to big cities, and not in a big city. I chose to work mostly with a fax and telephone, and went to the office only when necessary. I travelled a lot to promote my company. That became the pattern of my lifestyle."
When he decided to launch his own brand, Charriol wisely decided to aim it at an audience he knew well - at people like him: sophisticated, quality-conscious and sporty. He also appreciates antiquity, so he first developed watches, then jewellery, and then an entire product line. He took the logo from the twisted cable designs of the ancient Celts. "I work like an alchemist to create my own style," he says with a worldly-wise smile.
"You are full of hope, you are like a general to whom the king has given a free reign to conquer the world," he leans forward as he relives the excitement. "I knew that I wanted to develop a worldwide brand with different product categories like watches, jewellery, etc. At that time I didn't think about perfumes. But I immediately began to develop those categories, and I started to travel as much I could (in order to build a distribution network)."
Carving out a niche
Charriol knew he required a unique product to create a dent in the market. "I designed and produced a very unique product centred around cables, a product that you would not customarily find in a jewellery store," he recounts. "I was aiming at people who dared to buy something different. That's why the motto of my company is "L'art de vivre la difference" (the art of living the difference)."
How he differentiated himself from the rest was through, "First of all, the basic product. I am the only one using the material. By making products like watches and jewellery using steel and gold cables I made myself different. OK, the basic products can't be very different, but I've always tried to be a bit different, a bit special, in any aspect of my life, and that's what I try to translate into my work too."
What he did different was introduce the Celtic motif in his jewellery and watches. "I was looking for something different, going through books and museums, and I finally found it in a museum in England," he says, his eyes lighting up. "I found jewellery made by the Celtic people about 2,500 years ago. They used to thread metal wires into cables and fashion them into necklaces. I took inspiration from this."
Being Charriol he created his own style rather than following the established one. "I didn't want to duplicate what was already there, but instead created my own style," he says intensely. "It required a lot of courage and was a bit risky but it worked."
Charriol takes his brand very seriously. "I decided in 2000 to use the prune colour to denote the brand," he smiles. "Now, everything Charriol is in prune, the same way Rolex is green, Chanel is black, and Cartier is red. I wanted them to remember that Charriol is prune!" And it is.
Charriol doesn't pay too much attention to market sentiments. "I remember when I first came to the Middle East from India, gold was very important. Everyone was saying our Celtic-inspired watches and jewellery were not gold and hence nobody would like them. But even our steel bracelets became a success in the Middle East, and very fast. People fell in love with our designs."
A man with global ambitions, he established the brand's first boutique in Hong Kong in 1989. The reason, according to him, was simple. A major portion of the wealth is concentrated in Asia. He's worked there for 20 years, and so he knows the market well. "Actually, I started my first boutique in Mexico," he grins. "Right after that, I started one in Hong Kong. We have to remember that when you start you are very small. At that time, you can't compare yourself with already existing big brands. So I decided to have the first one in Mexico with a friend of mine who was in a business there. It was very affordable to operate a store there. If it works, fine. If not, nobody will know! We went to Hong Kong when it was the number one importer and exporter of watch and jewellery in the world. It was like Dubai then."
As an entrepreneur, Charriol knew Europe was big for the big names. "For the small to medium entrepreneur it's tough," he admits. "We are a bit weak in Europe, but we were very strong in the US before the economic meltdown. We now concentrate on the Middle East and Southeast Asia as well as greater China and Japan. And now we have to add India to that as the growth is definitely there."
In two decades, Charriol has established 600 Charriol ‘corners' and 42 boutiques across the world, as well as diversifying into leather goods and eyewear.
Living life in the fast lane
There is another side to Charriol's suave personality; he loves motor racing. "It's something I've always had in my blood," he says. "My father used to organise races in southern France. When I was seven, I sat on the lap of Juan Manuel Fangio who won the Grand Prix de Marseille in 1949. I was in love with cars and spent a lot of time in them. I do track racing, I even won a race in France. It's a very exceptional sport that brings out your competitiveness. It requires high concentration and is something very different from my daily business. It refreshes my mind!"
Helping out
This citizen of the world has a philanthropic side too. He established the Charriol Foundation to help budding artists. It holds an annual design competition to choose candidates for a scholarship to study in Paris. "Everyone has something that he likes a lot. I like contemporary art. In fact, my son is a painter. Some 20 years ago, when based in Asia I found that artists were in dire straits. I tried to help bring them into the limelight to showcase their talent. I help them in promoting their art by presenting them in public, and so help them sell."
You would expect work to be top priority for a successful entrepreneur like Charriol, but this is not necessarily so. "You have to keep yourself busy, but also enjoy life. A good ratio is when you can work for 20 per cent of the time and enjoy 80 per cent of the time. Agreed, it's very difficult to reach that ratio. I'd be happy if I could be free and independent. For me that's very important in life."
What women want
I notice that Charriol's range of watches largely caters to woman. I ask Charriol why that is.
"Yes it's largely for women. Its around 75 per cent for women and 25 per cent for men. I don't know why… maybe because women buy more watches. Men are more conservative, whereas women are open and tend to try different colours, etc."
Charriol's product philosophy seems to hinge on the age-old question ‘what do women want?'. Has Charriol been able to figure out the elusive answer? "Not exactly. I would be a very happy man if I knew!" he laughs. More seriously, he continues: "We are creators and we sell ideas to people. Not the other way round."
So what is his style? "Mixing seriousness with exuberance," he says without missing a beat, this sums up his product philosophy as well.