The Maison Sisley Luxembourg opened its doors at the end of December and officially inaugurated its space on Monday 16 March. Combining a boutique and a treatment institute, it offers both the sale of products and in-cabin treatments carried out by beauticians. Founded in 1976 by Hubert and Isabelle d’Ornano, Sisley is one of the few upmarket cosmetics houses to remain independent and family-run. Philippe d’Ornano, son of the founders and chairman of the company since 2013, was in Luxembourg for the occasion. Interview.
Why did you choose Luxembourg to open a Maison Sisley?
Philippe d’Ornano. —“This is both a business choice [but also] one of recognition. Luxembourg was one of the first markets I dealt with when I went international, more than 30 years ago. We’re lucky enough to be the leading skincare brand and the leading selective make-up brand there. Our products are loved there, which is always a pleasure. When the opportunity arose to open a house here, it was a no-brainer. There’s also something interesting about the interaction between a product, a country and a clientele. We’ve been employing local teams for a very long time. It’s not just another sales outlet.
Luxembourg is a special market for you?
“It’s a very product-loving and highly educated market. Customers are international, demanding and know what they are looking for. This is exactly the customer profile we work for. And each Maison Sisley is unique: the one in Luxembourg was decorated and designed specifically for this location. If you go to Paris, London, Prague or Milan, you’ll find a different house every time. The care is the same, but the soul of the place is specific to each city.
Being private and not listed on the stock exchange, […] that’s what allows us to work like this.
Why invest in physical spaces at a time when digital dominates?
“The ‘maison’ does not replace the product, it allows you to discover it in conditions of excellence: top-level service, personalised advice, application by a professional beautician. There’s no better way to discover top-of-the-range products. What’s more, in this age of digital and online sales, these spaces remain profoundly human. We try to create what I call poetic luxury; a place where you feel at ease, not intimidated. Not a ‘cathedral’ luxury where some customers feel uncomfortable despite their purchasing power. We really want to take care of people.
Sisley is often perceived as a luxury brand or an eco-friendly brand. How do you define yourself?
“Neither; or, at least, that’s not our starting point. Our use of natural active ingredients was not motivated by an environmental objective, it was an efficiency objective. Back in the ’60s, my father worked in one of the biggest research laboratories in the world. When he compared natural active ingredients with their synthetic equivalents, the results were better. It’s as simple as that. A plant is like a natural chemical factory: it can contain between 100,000 and 200,000 different active ingredients. This isn’t herbalism, it’s science.
That said, we are also very sensitive to environmental issues, and we try to manage the business by minimising our impact. But that’s not what guides our formulas; it’s the result. We don’t do market research. We work on a cream for ten years, give it 50 active ingredients, and calculate the cost at the end. We’re a private, family-run business, not quoted on the stock exchange. We don’t have to report to shareholders every quarter. That’s what allows us to work like this.
You have to sell the right product to the right customer, not necessarily the last one.
How do you guarantee the quality of advice to your customers?
“There are two pillars to success: the quality of the products and the quality of the advice. The higher the quality of a product, the less room there is for error. You can’t sell the latest product; you have to sell the right product to the right customer. When I travel and talk to consumers, I always hear the same thing: ‘Sisley is expensive, but it’s a really good brand.’ That [word] ‘really’ says it all. In fact, we have three evaluation criteria for our products: efficacy, measured by internal and external clinical tests; tolerance—a cosmetic must be perfectly well tolerated, which is a requirement that medicines do not have; and what we call compliance, i.e. the pleasure of use. The more pleasant a product is, the more correctly the consumer uses it, and the better the result.
The Yuka app is used a lot by consumers. How do you react to this phenomenon?
“I’m quite critical, and I’ll tell you why. Evaluation is a profession. The fundamental problem with Yuka is that it doesn’t take into account dosage or exposure to risk. Take water: it’s essential to life, but if you drink 13 litres of it at once, you’ll die. The same goes for salt. Even 12 grams of aspirin is lethal. And curare, a violent poison in high doses, is a highly effective anaesthetic in low doses. That’s toxicology: it’s the dose that makes the poison.
Or, Yuka has no laboratory, no scientific team. They’re just data-crunchers who take existing data and decide that an ingredient is dangerous. They’re not serious. What bothers me deeply is the anti-scientific approach and the fact that people are being scared without any basis. Active ingredients authorised by the European health authorities are given a bad mark by an application with no scientific legitimacy. I’m not against the principle of an evaluation application; as long as it really incorporates dosages and is based on real expertise.”
