Ramdane Touhami is a creative visionary and serial entrepreneur. He’s the man behind global beauty brand Buly 1803, which he co-founded in 2014 with his wife and business partner Victoire de Taillac, and sold to LVMH in October 2021.
Touhami joins us on this podcast episode to share his journey in turning stores into conceptual destinations, reviving heritage candlemaker Cire Trudon and reinventing The Gazoline Stand in Paris.
He also talks about his recently published monograph, The Beauty of Time Travel (Gestalten), which explores how to construct a global brand “from the bottom up”.
Tune in to hear Touhami’s discussion with Bethan Ryder, WGSN’s Executive Editorial Director, and Lisa White, Director of Interiors, on how to resurrect a historic brand, what role creativity plays in business and a little bit about fashion trailblazers Alessandro Michele and the late Virgil Abloh.
The ‘wow’ factor
“We don’t sell a product, we sell ‘wow’. Wow is better than a product. You open the door, you listen to the music, you smell, you see the interior, you see the stuff from the outside; there’s one wow, two wow, three wow. You see a person doing calligraphy, you smell the things, you see the experience, how nicely the women are dressed; it’s wow, wow, wow, wow. Everyone has a product, but not so many people have a ‘wow’.”
– Ramdane Touhami, serial entrepreneur and founder of beauty brand Buly 1803
Creativity fuels business
“At WGSN we talk about creativity, not just on the innovation side and design side, but I believe the case for creativity is industry. I see creativity as the raw materials for everything, and you can be creative in accounting, you can be creative in HR, you can be creative in everything, but it doesn’t get recognised from a business perspective. Without creativity there is no innovation; without innovation, there is no business.”
– Lisa White, WGSN Creative Director and Director of Interiors
To hear the full discussion tune in to Episode 44 of our Create Tomorrow podcast, Designing Wow with Ramdane Touhami, Founder of Beauty Brand Buly 1803, on Anchor, Apple and Spotify.