Dubai
Dhamani, the upscale jewellery retailer, wants to scale a long way up on the “prestige” factor. It has done so by creating a new branding and retail concept under the ‘Dhamani 1969’ name, and with plans to open one store each in select cities.
The first has opened at The Dubai Mall, and entailing a capital outlay of Dh10 million plus. The store’s inventory of intricately designed jewellery pieces will start from around Dh20,000 and then the zeros keep adding. Other planned openings could be in Qatar, London and Singapore, with Hong Kong to follow in a later phase. (The Group, incidentally, has had a presence at The Dubai Mall since its opening. The transition to Dhamani 1969 represents a full makeover of the original look and feel.)
“With Dhamani 1969 (the numbers are a reference to the year the original business came into being), we will not deviate from the ‘one city, one store’ mandate,” said Amit Dhamani, CEO and managing director. “The global jewellery business is populated by a handful of super-exclusive brands and the space thereafter is taken up by a lot of brands with little to choose between them. “We want to get into the super-exclusive category and Dhamani 1969 is the first step.
“The reason why we will stick to the one store to a city plan is because the kind of investments required are tremendous, and that’s not limited to the capital invested. We have expended a lot of energy and time — two to three years — in the process.”
In terms of inventory, the sourcing will be done exclusively through niche jewellery designers in Italy and France, as opposed to a wider sourcing arrangements — from makers in Bangkok, Beirut, etc — it maintains for its Dhamani Jewels store requirements.
“Even for Dhamani 1969, we prefer to deal with third-parties and it’s not our intention to take direct ownership of the manufacturing process, now or in the future,” said Dhamani.
The retailer has never been into the high-volume gold jewellery, which has been the staple for the precious metals trade here. Instead, its steadfast focus has been on diamonds and gemstones, first as a supplier in the 1980s and thereafter when it shifted its headquarters from Thailand to Dubai in 1995-96. It was in the early part of the last decade that it got into the retail space. In 2005, it won exclusive right for the Dubai Cut Diamond from the Dubai authorities.
“We will continue to maintain the Dhamani Jewels network, though even there we shut down some as it was felt there was no need for us to be seen in certain locations,” said Dhamani.
