DUBAI 29 July 2019: Paris-based ST Dupont, suppliers of fine luxury items to royals, presidents, statesmen and celebrities worldwide has survived the onslaught of time for almost a 150 years. It’s president Alain Crevet, answers how when asked by Dubai Gazette.
Q. S.T. Dupont is 147 years old, walk us through the growth of the company
In 1872, Simon Tissot Dupont opened his first workshop in Paris. The 147 years since spans six generations. Simon Tissot Dupont was originally a photographer for the court of the Emperor Napoleon the Third, and his wife, the Empress Eugenie. His photography studio burnt down, so he and his family and acquaintances in his village (Faverges in the Haute-Savoie, France) produced beautiful travel cases and leather accessories, which he sold to the Court of the Emperor and Empress. They then became the preferred leather goods, travel cases, trunks, and bags supplier for the Court of the Emperor and that’s how he started this business back in 1872.
S.T. Dupont then became the go-to luxury accessories brand for all of the aristocracy and influential people at the end of 19th and then through the 20th century. From those initial accessories, they also began to create belts, cufflinks, then lighters and then later, luxury pens.
Q. S.T. Dupont has been a successful for over a century, why do you think this is?
We create exceptional products for exceptional people. Essentially, we are a small luxury accessory business. I like to call it a boutique-type brand or a ‘maison’, as we say in French. We’re very specialist, and we are a pure French brand – 95 per cent of our products are made in France in that same village where the brand was born – where we have always had the workshop and where everything is hand-crafted.
Jackie Kennedy Connection
It was thanks to Jackie Kennedy, at the time First Lady of the United States, that the company introduced the Art of Writing in 1973. She asked S.T. Dupont to design a handsome, simple and elegant writing instrument that would match her Ligne 1 lighter. Thus, S.T. Dupont invented the first luxury ballpoint pen for her.
We recently launched a new collection to celebrate 50 years since the NASA Apollo space mission landed the first man on the moon. The collection includes a limited edition, hand-carved Apollo 11 Lunar Module on the Moon lighter. Only eight hand-crafted lighters encrusted with diamonds, with a gold and silver finishing housing a USB containing genuine moon dust powder are available.
Q. The company must have faced some challenges over the years, how were they overcome?
I joined S.T. Dupont in in 2006 and the company was in a bad situation. It had been losing money for nearly eight years and it as nearly bankrupt. The brand had diversified into offering Men’s ready-to-wear, which I felt wasn’t relevant to the brand as there was no special craftsmanship in the range. I shut down the ready-to-wear within the first year and closed seven shops. We focused back on handcrafted items, on pens and the lighters and then added back the leather accessories.
Q. Who is a typical S.T. Dupont customer?
We are a favourite amongst French Royals, Presidents, international elite and connoisseurs along with famous names including Audrey Hepburn, Picasso, Coco Chanel, Yves Saint-Laurent, Leonardo Di Caprio, Daniel Craig, Cara Delevigne, Keira Knightley and Natalie Portman.
Q. Young people are a sizable part of the population here, how are you appealing to them?
As lifestyles change, contemporary men for example, want less formal accessories that can transition from their formal roles into their personal, casual lives. We’ve combined our technical know-how with contemporary sentiments, for instance the S.T. Dupont expertise in precious metalwork and natural lacquer is put to use in transforming metal in to unique cufflinks that isn’t limited to the boardroom. They combine timelessness and modern design. Great heritage doesn’t mean dusty or old-fashioned; these limited editions are meant to attract new and younger customers.
Q. You are a global company, how are you taking into account the effect of the business on the environment?
Being eco-friendly is something the S. T. Dupont brand has always upheld, and it’s been very important for me personally, too. The family belongs to the village of Faverges, at the foothills of the Alps, which is also where the factory is located, so they were of the belief that while we must create beautiful things, we must not harm the mountains and lakes in the surrounding area.
This is reflected in the way we recycle, we have always sourced only equitable gold, now use only natural lacquer and recently we have put up solar panels in the factory. We are even looking at alternative sources for leather, which is a huge departure for a company known, above all, for its leather goods.
