Christophe Cervasel and Sylvie Ganter co-founders of Atelier Cologne

Premium Beauty News - What are the terms of the purchase?

Christophe Cervasel - The whole company was purchased, but Sylvie Ganter and I are still entrepreneurs fully involved in the brand’s future management and development.

Premium Beauty News - Will this result in a few changes in terms of development?

Christophe Cervasel - We have not planned any specific changes. At L’Oréal, they like what we do, and our objective is to do it even better with them. So, we are going to go on with our development strategy around wholly-owned stores, shop-in-shops, and Sephora. We already went very fast with this distribution strategy, which also includes e-commerce, since the brand has known a 100% growth per year since its creation. The idea is to continue along the same exponential lines, thanks to the group’s strength, which will help us go faster, and to make the brand grow in the points of sale where we are present today, with new customers.

Premium Beauty News - What about the global level?

Christophe Cervasel - Atelier Cologne is already present in 40 countries, but we have the ambition to open several stores in the world’s largest cities. We have planned to launch Atelier Cologne in Brazil by the end of the year, which we will be able to do even better now, and perhaps we will open a wholly-owned store shortly after we have entered this market.

As for Travel Retail, after Paris, London, and Frankfurt, we have other ongoing projects for personalized duty free areas.

Premium Beauty News - How were you convinced to join the L’Oréal Group?

Christophe Cervasel - L’Oréal managed to seduce us thanks to its capacity to integrate a brand with a highly strong DNA and make it become a global brand, while allowing it to keep its identity, as was done with Kiehl’s. They did something extraordinary when they used the group’s strength to serve the brand’s spirit. What we want is to reproduce this success in perfumery.

With the support of a group, there is more strength, more means, more negotiation margin, and in certain trades, more expertise, in particular in retail. L’Oréal are fond of our identity, and we would love to go very far with them!