An Emirati entrepreneur has brought the fifth generation handcrafted shoe brand Carmina to the MENA region, starting with Dubai.
Although Abdullah Al Rashdi, CEO of Rozana Enterprise, had previously shunned investing in retail, he said seeing Carmina’s Paris store while vacationing in the French capital changed his mind.
“Before Carmina, I was against investing in the retail industry as I believed that e-commerce makes this industry very tough. Instead, I tend to lean towards investing in manufacturing, real estate and financial outlets,” said Al Rashdi.
“With Carmina, I started shifting my perspective on retail investments. I want to focus on growing the brand for now but, at the end of the day, I am an investor. If another good opportunity in retail comes along then why not consider it?” he continued.
Carmina is a Majorcan-based family business with 150 employees. The brand, which produces 50,000 handcrafted luxury shoes per year, has stores in Paris and New York, but the outlet in Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates (MOE) is their first store in the Middle East.
“In terms of numbers and conversion to sales, MOE made more sense than Dubai Mall, both of which are the pinnacle malls in Dubai. While Dubai Mall is beautiful and nice to walk around in, MOE is more geared towards actual shopping,” said Al Rashdi.
“Obviously we plan to expand in the MENA region but Dubai is known to be the gateway to the GCC. We are looking to open our next store in Saudi Arabia and then sister stores will follow starting with Kuwait, Bahrain and maybe a store in Jeddah and another perhaps in Dubai Mall,” he added.
After seeing the store in Paris in August, Al Rashdi and his sister flew to Spain in November and met with Sandro Ramis, great-grandson of the founder and director of the brand, to negotiate the deal for launching Carmina in the MENA region.
“It’s a gut feeling you get. There were a couple of investments I made based on my gut feeling and eventually I succeeded in them: Carmina is one of them,” said Al Rashdi.
“What I liked about the Al Rashdis is that they have the same spirit as us; they are a family business, not a big impersonal holding,” said Ramis.
Carmina’s MOE store opened late November 2020, but Al Rashdi does not feel the coronavirus pandemic will have a long term impact on the physical retail business.
“The brand Carmina, the pricing, the heritage…everything is a winner. So even during the pandemic, I was not really that worried. All businesses slowed down during the worst of the pandemic but at the end of the day it is a cycle, and all businesses will pick up eventually,” he said.
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