CULTURE
BUSINESS UNUSUAL | LIFE | TRAVEL | DESIGN | TRAPPINGS
"WE KNOW HOW TO OBSERVE PEOPLE AND THINGS. OUR OBSERVANCE IS BASED ON THE DESIRE TO SERVE YOU BETTER. BEING A HOTELIER WAS A GREAT SCHOOL FOR STARTING ANY OTHER BUSINESS LATER ON.”
Roberto Coin
ATTENTION TO DETAIL ROBERTO COIN The founder of the Roberto Coin line of jewelry explains how to build a winning luxury brand b y TA M A R A P U P I C
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oberto Coin’s boutique in the Fashion Avenue extension of the Dubai Mall, which was opened in February in partnership with Damas Jewellery, comes across as a visual refer-
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ence of two elements that are fundamental to the brand: nature and ethics. A vertical garden that covers part of the wall is the live backdrop that Roberto Coin chose to display Animalier, one of his most beloved collections, while the shelves are lined with his 18 karat gold jewelry
pieces, all carrying a Roberto Coin signature ruby on the inside of each piece. Roberto Coin uses only synthetic rubies to guarantee no stone comes from a region in turmoil, which brings us to the founder’s innate and unwavering commitment to ethics in his business. “People who know me understand that we have always been an extremely ethical company- not just now, when it is fashionable to be ethical,” Roberto Coin says at the launch of his new boutique, noting that he has been one of the founding board members of the World Diamond Council since its inception. “We’ve worked with many international organizations to make the diamond industry respectable. I am a big fighter against synthetic diamonds, if they cannot be identified by the consumer, as well as by a lot of retailers. I am not against
the selling of them; they can sell them as long as you, as a consumer, and the person who sells them, can identify them. If he or she cannot identify them, and does not declare that they actually are synthetic diamonds, I don’t like it. I believe in that kind of world.” In Coin’s case, all polished diamonds used in his collections are purchased from legitimate sources and from conflict-free areas, for which the brand subscribes to the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) and the System of Warranties. Coin has also been distinctively active within the philanthropic community, with his brand repeatedly winning accolades for its corporate social responsibility initiatives, about which he says, “I believe in charity, which taught me to steal money from the rich, and give it to the poor. And in this case as well, you need to be ethical. People give you money, because they believe that it will be used for what it was given. That is the world that I represent.” The Roberto Coin brand was born in 1996, and today lists notable personalities like Isabelle Adjani, Christy Turlington Burns, Hilary Clinton, Sofia Vergara, and Oprah Winfrey among its loyal clients. But to really understand how Coin got to where he is today, we have to go back to his first entrepre-
