At home with Selva

Italian furnishings company  Selva has unveiled Philipp Selva Home, a new addition to its growing collection of brands.

Philipp Selva visited Dubai recently to introduce the new brand to the region. “The major event of 2009 is the launch of Philipp Selva Home. It is going to focus specifically on the high-end and premium market, and it is going to be more of a concept or lifestyle idea.

“It is not an assembly of collections of furniture but rather a programme. The idea is to blend all of our different products into one, bigger picture,” Selva explained.

The brand will also mark Selva’s entry into the lighting sector. The aim is to offer holistic solutions, and lighting is key to creating the right atmosphere, Selva explained.

“For the first time in its history, Selva is going to launch its own lighting. We have developed lamps to specifically match our collections. The designers and myself have looked at creating something that is not currently on the market, something that is unique but still matches our specific products.”

The launch of Philipp Selva Home means that the company now encompasses three main brands. “One is Selva Timeless Beauty, which is the main catalogue featuring the more traditional products that we carry.

“Then, of course, there is Philipp Selva Home, which is more eclectic and more of a lifestyle brand, where we mix traditional and contemporary to create a new identity. And finally, there is Selva Hospitality, which is a designated organisation for the high-end hospitality industry,” Selva detailed.

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

The company is planning a global roll-out of the new brand and hopes to establish some 250 dedicated Philipp Selva Home stores in key markets by the end of next year. “We want to launch more and more of what we call our flagship stores and standalone, single-brand stores, worldwide.”

Plans to launch a dedicated Philipp Selva Home space in Dubai – to complement the existing Selva showroom – are already being put into place. The company has secured retail space in Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates, and an Abu Dhabi location is also in the pipeline. A mall setting will offer greater exposure and bring the company into contact with new types of customer, Selva maintained. 

The Dubai market provides enormous opportunity for Selva to expose itself to a varied and geographically-diverse audience, Selva explained. “Dubai is a great window to the world.”

It is also a market that doesn’t receive the attention it deserves from other furniture manufacturers, Selva suggested. “You find a lot of excellent interior designers here but in terms of stores or factories really putting their energy into the GCC, I don’t really see them in the market. It’s not like Germany or other places, where around every corner you find a number of high-end retailers.”

While the timing of the launch may not be ideal, Selva remains adamant that now is not the time to sit back and wait passively for the market to improve.

“Things aren’t the best, as everybody knows. But, at this time, you need to be very aggressive in marketing and in bringing out new ideas. You have to be really innovative and you have to be strong in terms of product development.
 
“At the moment, a lot of things are being reshaped and remodelled, so I feel that there is great opportunity for us right now.

“The world is changing everyday, as everyone can see, and those old names will not work anymore. You need to have a product that is speaking in a 21st century language,” he concluded.

---