Tuesday, 7 April 2015

Paul & Shark brings a personal touch to Singapore


Italian Luxury Lifestyle brand Paul & Shark returns to TFWA Asia Pacific this year (stand D11) with its special embroidery machine to enable visitors to collect their own personalized Polo shirt.  Travel Retail Director Catherine Bonelli says that this unique offer was incredibly well received at TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes last year. “It takes just a few minutes to embroider a name or message on a Polo Shirt, which in Singapore we will have for men and women,” she says. “It is such a fantastic way to show customers how we can create something different for travel retail outlets and as a result of this feature in Cannes, we are now in talks with several retailers about introducing a machine into Paul & Shark airport boutiques. With our embroidery machine present in Singapore, customers have the option to have an entirely personalised item.”



Since TFWA World Exhibition last October, Bonelli has been travelling non-stop to agree new listings for this luxury quality brand.  Paul & Shark now has some 45 points of sale in travel retail, across three continents and we are steadily building distribution,” she says. “Since Cannes we have opened a number of new locations, including a fantastic new 250 sq m boutique at Haitang Bay where sales are exceeding all our expectations. In March we opened a 32sq m SIS at Larnaca and our location at Brussels airport moved to a bigger and better location within the Luxury Concourse; this is a good example of where the retailer now understands the need for Paul & Shark to be in the right location.  April sees the opening of an improved location at Istanbul and we have many other projects under negotiation.  In addition, at sea we are now with Tallink & Silja Line on Silja Seranade and Silja Symphony, plus we are onboard seven wonderful cruise-ships with Starboard including two from Crystal Cruises and five from Silverseas. Again we have been delighted with our performance in these locations.”

 At TFWA Asia Pacific Bonelli is keen to keep this momentum going, but emphasises that the right partnerships are more important than quantity. ‘The key is to develop very personal relationships with our customers based on our passion, agility, flexibility, and strong customer focus,” she continues “ The main challenge we face is to convince operators to be ready to make the investment in space for fashion in premium, high traffic locations. We can never expect the fashion category to be given as much space within the airport retail environment as the traditional categories of liquor, tobacco and p&c; however we are always hoping for more! But as important is ensuring the brand adjencies within an airport are correct. Paul & Shark is a luxury lifestyle brand offering ‘made in Italy’, top quality clothing presented in unique and prestigious packaging. Our brand needs to be placed alongside brands that have the same customer focus – we very much hope that this will come across in Singapore.”

At TFWA Asia Pacific Paul & Shark will be showing its Spring Summer 2015 Collection. With a new focus on Travel Retail, the collection highlights Polos of the World, which includes different country flags embroidered on Polo shirts This capsule collection represents the international expansion of the brand over the last few years, addressing customers from all over the world.

The new Smart Casual line links Luxury and Sportswear, offering a comfortable but refined total look. It represents a refined section of the Sportswear proposal and is addressed to an elegant man. The jackets are extremely light and made of nylon with leather or suede details. It also features the iconic shark with the grey Paul & Shark Smart Casual Collection logo on a solid blue background. 
SS15 also includes the:
* Luxury Collection - high quality materials combined with hand-made tailoring with a new golden Paul & Shark Luxury garment logo on a solid blue background;  
* The Sportswear line goes beyond the active sportswear borders and becomes part of a 100% lifestyle context using materials which do not traditionally belong to the sports world and and which are capable of combining style and performance;

*  Capri, the summer capsule collection; here summer is represented through colours and materials such as cotton and linen.
A new addition is the Travel Shirt that is presented in a bag made of the same fabric and colour: it is perfect for travel and yet remains elegant in the wardrobe of the Paul & Shark man.
“We are very much looking forward to meeting our existing and new clients in Singapore this year,” says Bonelli. “It’s a very exciting time now for Paul & Shark in travel retail. We have an expanded team, a fabulous offer and a unique approach that is perfect for this industry.”

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