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Filiale de LVMH, la première enseigne de parfumeries au monde mise sur les ouvertures de magasins, les services et les innovations.

Sur des Champs-Élysées en pleine mutation, c’est l’ouverture la plus attendue de l’année. Ce vendredi, les équipes de Sephora inaugureront en grande pompe la version rénovée du navire amiral de l’enseigne de parfumeries, situé au numéro 66 de la plus belle avenue du monde. Sous une immense verrière reproduisant, au choix, la lumière du jour, les couleurs noires et blanches symboles de la marque ou des animations colorées, une immense allée pavée en marbre rappellera aux visiteurs qu’ils sont au cœur de Paris. Avec en plein milieu un «beauty hub» typique de l’enseigne, surplombé d’une structure métallique symbolisant l’Arc de triomphe. Sur les murs en bois, un «beauty wall» à perte de vue met en valeur les parfums et produits de beauté qui ont fait la renommée de l’enseigne.

Cette réouverture est aussi un enjeu pour LVMH, propriétaire de Sephora depuis 1997. D’une part, l’enseigne est l’un des principaux pourvoyeurs de profits du leader mondial du luxe, avec Louis Vuitton et Hennessy ; d’autre part, le groupe a d’autres ambitions sur les Champs-Élysées, à commencer par la création d’un nouveau flagship pour Louis Vuitton, à la place du siège historique du CCF. Il aura fallu aux architectes plus d’un an et demi de réflexion et six mois de travaux pour rénover totalement les 1300 m2 du magasin phare de Sephora, inauguré en 1996. «C’est le plus gros investissement jamais consenti sur un de nos magasins en Europe, détaille Guillaume Motte, PDG de Sephora, leader mondial de la parfumerie sélective. Une telle rénovation doit nous permettre de continuer à faire croître de façon importante notre activité en France où, même si le marché est plus mature, le potentiel reste important.» Avec 10.000 visiteurs par jour, le magasin figure dans le top 2 des points de vente de l’enseigne. Son coup de jeune doit lui permettre de faire bondir de 20% des ventes.

Tous les ans, Sephora modernise ainsi de fond en comble deux à trois de ses boutiques phares, comme le Sephora des 4 Temps à la Défense en 2019. Il ouvre par ailleurs au moins 100 nouvelles adresses par an, comme à Londres en mars dernier. Après plus de quinze ans d’absence, l’enseigne a fait son grand retour outre-Manche. En novembre, il en inaugurera un second à Stratford City. «C’est la preuve que loin d’être mort, le magasin qui mêle expérience et services est plus que jamais vivant», insiste Guillaume Motte.

Services et innovations

Sur un marché mondial de la beauté en pleine forme avec une croissance de 6% l’an passé pour atteindre 250 milliards d’euros, Sephora affiche une santé encore plus éclatante. Après une hausse de 17% en 2022, le chiffre d’affaires de la division distribution sélective de LVMH, dont l’enseigne est la locomotive, a bondi de 26% sur les neuf premiers mois de 2023. Selon les analystes, l’enseigne aux 2700 magasins avoisinait en 2022 les 12 milliards d’euros de chiffre d’affaires, soit 15% de l’activité de sa maison mère.

«Avec une croissance 2 à 4 fois supérieure à celle de nos concurrents, l’objectif des 20 milliards d’euros pourrait être atteint plus vite que prévu», glisse Guillaume Motte, sans dévoiler de date. Pour garder le rythme, le PDG compte consolider les piliers de sa croissance. Notamment le savant mélange entre les marques phares du marché aussi vendues chez ses rivaux et dans les grands magasins, les marques ou références proposés en exclusivité (tels les parfums Francis Kurkdjian, les cosmétiques Makeup By Mario et Glow Recipe) et sa gamme propre Sephora Collection, qui fait de l’enseigne une destination privilégiée des générations Z et Alpha. «Sephora Collection est la marque qui recrute le plus dans nos magasins. Par son accessibilité, elle permet aux clientes de découvrir la beauté de prestige», décrypte le PDG.

Sephora mise aussi sur la montée en gamme, notamment sur le parfum, et limite les prix cassés. «Nous ne sommes pas favorables au discount et promotions à tout va, et préférons nous différencier par le prix juste, l’offre, l’expérience et l’image», explique le dirigeant. Cette stratégie a fait mouche tant auprès des marques historiques (Dior, Lancôme…) que des plus récentes et branchées, comme Fenty Beauty, la marque de Rihanna, ou Rare Beauty, celle de Selena Gomez, lancée en 2020.

Dans ses boutiques comme sur internet, Sephora mise plus que jamais sur les services. Ceux offerts en rayon par ses vendeuses équipées de terminaux digitaux et ceux de soin et maquillage proposés dans des espaces dédiés à ses clientes VIP. Dans son concept «Store of the Future» lancé à Singapour il y a un an, les applications d’analyse de la peau se mêlent aux conseils de maquillage générés par intelligence artificielle, aux QR Codes et aux capteurs digitaux donnant informations et avis clients. «Nous sommes dans une approche ultra-innovante, assure le PDG. Cela explique le dynamisme qu’en tant que leader, nous impulsons dans notre secteur.»

Ce concept à la pointe de la technologie a été répliqué à Shanghaï cet été et la semaine dernière à Wuhan. Tous concepts confondus, une quinzaine d’ouvertures sont prévues dans l’empire du Milieu d’ici fin décembre . «La reprise de l’activité reste lente en Chine, admet le PDG. Mais la différenciation de l’offre fait bien partie de notre plan d’accélération sur place. Le soin y est le segment le plus important, mais le maquillage offre aussi des opportunités, avec des marques symboles de la beauté chinoise comme Mao Geping ou Tatcha, qui marchent très bien.»

Plutôt que d’ouvrir de nouveaux marchés, Sephora préfère se concentrer sur les pays où il est déjà présent. Comme au Royaume-Uni et au Mexique, «où, avec respectivement 2 et 35 magasins, le réservoir de croissance est grand», estime Guillaume Motte.

Le groupe compte surtout poursuivre sa véritable «success story» aux États-Unis, son marché le plus important et affichant «une croissance organique particulièrement soutenue de ses ventes», selon le dernier point semestriel de l’enseigne cet été. «Loin d’y avoir un ralentissement, la dynamique reste très forte. Comme ailleurs, la beauté même de prestige reste un plaisir abordable. C’est ce fameux “lipstick effect”, (l’«effet rouge à lèvres»,NDLR) qui permet d’atténuer les creux de marché», estime Guillaume Motte. Via une association avec la chaîne de grands magasins Kohl’s en 2021, Sephora y dispose désormais d’un millier de points de vente («shop in shop») à son enseigne.

«Partout dans le monde, nous investissons dans la marque, l’expérience et les équipes», conclut le dirigeant. Les succès récents de ses événements Sephora, regroupant à New York, Paris puis Shanghaï (début 2024) des innovations, ses marques exclusives et des master class, prouvent que la recette fonctionne. Les relais de croissance ne sont pas épuisés. À côté du maquillage, du soin et du parfum, de perspectives s’ouvrent depuis 2020 sur les soins du cheveu. «Le marché est en pleine croissance, et nous voulons aussi devenir une destination capillaire», confirme-t-on dans les couloirs du flagship parisien des Champs-Élysées.

“It was the perfect moment to reinvent the prestige beauty flagship experience,” said Guillaume Motte, Sephora president and CEO.

PARIS — Sephora’s Parisian flagship has gotten a significant makeover.

Following six-and-a-half months of renovation, the 12,915-square-foot store will reopen its doors to the public on Friday. This is the first major remodeling the location has had since opening in 1996.

“Sephora is shaping the prestige beauty landscape,” said Guillaume Motte, the retailer’s president and chief executive officer. “We are, at the moment, going through a very inspiring momentum, with vibrant innovations in terms of brands, categories and products, new customer behaviors and expectations.

“It was the perfect moment to reinvent the prestige beauty flagship experience,” he continued. “And, of course, the perspective of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games [for which Sephora is an official partner of the torch relay] made it a perfect moment for this renovation.”

“We wanted to create a more differentiated experience that brings together the best of beauty from all around the world, with an atmosphere that is deeply connected to the store’s exceptional location,” continued Sylvie Moreau, president, Europe and Middle East at Sephora.

There was just one city in mind.

“The inspiration is coming from Paris,” said Benoît Ponte, general manager of Sephora France, during a walk-through last week of the store, which was bustling with employees setting up for the reopening.

The flagship’s design nods vigorously to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, on which it stands, at numbers 70 to 72, with a 2.6-foot-wide path of hand-set snow white marble paving running straight through the store. Sephora’s signature black-and-white stripes appear on some columns flanking that.

Making everything glow is the 295-foot-long illuminated ceiling, which can be adjusted to resemble natural light. The idea was to give the illusion of being under one of Paris’ glass-covered walkways.

Upon entering, Sephora’s walls seem to be made of the limestone used on Parisian buildings, but it’s trompe l’oeil. On the left-hand side is a click-and-collect area with a selfie-friendly, multihued light box.

A bit further in, guests will find a list of the store’s services, like makeup, skin care, hair, fragrance discovery, brows, face glow and personalized engraving. That hangs across from a wall ablaze with Sephora’s flame logo.

The Corner is devoted to individual brands, with the first being Dior. Then the full brand experience rolls out.

“It’s very premium,” said Ponte of the selection. “Some brands are only at Sephora Champs-Élysées.”

An example of a label found in no other Sephoras is Maison Francis Kurkdjian, a fragrance brand that shares the retailer’s parent company, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

Francis Kurkdjian will be sold in the section devoted to high-premium fragrance brands. Facing that are premium makeup labels.

“You have the Beauty Hub, which is really the Arc de Triomphe inside the store,” said Ponte, pointing to the 540-square-foot central space. “We can animate it on our own, but the brands are animating as well. For the coming two months we will have a new brand doing something every day.”

At first, makeup and skin care labels will mostly take over the hub, which is modular.

There is an area showcasing which brands are hot on social media, plus The Next Big Thing gondola and the Gift Hub.

Reda Slaoui, director of architecture and design, Europe and Middle East at Sephora, highlighted some noble materials implemented, such as the high-quality marble used on some counters, as well as the floor.

For the first time in a Sephora, there are large green plants.

“Visually it has an effect when you have plants in the space, but it also helps with the air quality,” said Slaoui, adding the new air conditioning system filters to the maximum.

Much thought was poured into corporate social responsibility initiatives. There are, for instance, fewer digital screens in the new location versus its predecessor. Each LED system was replaced with the most consumption-efficient iteration.

“This store will reduce by 50 percent the energy consumption that we had in the previous store,” said Ponte.

Acoustics-wise, it will be quieter here, too, due to some corrugated textures on walls, as well as materials used, such as wood.

This flagship also sells the wide range of prestige fragrance — for women and for men — and color cosmetics found at other Sephoras. Those include the likes of Benefit, Charlotte Tilbury and Rare Beauty.

The retailer’s signature collection has its own department, and there’s an area for hair care.

“The category of hair is booming at Sephora,” said Ponte, explaining it’s been a segment of focus for the retailer over the past two years in France, where its selling surface has doubled. Some brands lining shelves include Kérastase, Gisou, Sisley and Moroccanoil, as well as Dyson accessories.

Where the cash registers once stood at the far right of the store now houses the skin care department, replete with strips of wood lining the walls and elevated ceiling. This vast area, with brands such as Byoma, Drunk Elephant and Laneige, has skin-related services. It is illuminated with natural light streaming through large, frosted windows.

“Like hair care, it’s another booming category for us,” said Ponte.

Merchandising was tweaked.

“We optimized the space of the brands” to help improve circulation, said Slaoui, explaining that some gondolas are shorter than before, measuring 6.5 feet rather than 10 feet in length.

“But at the end of the day, we express the same volume of products,” said Ponte.

Other exclusives for France include Makeup by Mario, Prada Beauty and Glow Recipe.

Prior to the remodeling, Sephora’s Paris flagship boasted 12 million visitors a year, of which one-quarter were tourists from outside France. Many are considered VIP clients.

Per day, there were more than 10,000 people visiting, while after the renovation footfall levels should be higher, according to Ponte.

“That’s why the circulation is so important to the concept and the layout,” said Slaoui.

The cash registers now are placed directly at the back of the store under a large screen and self-checkout is available.

“We sell a product every 15 seconds,” said Ponte.

A private lounge was expanded for VIP customers or brands to animate, with services possible.

“We have Sephora codes — black and white — with very beautiful materials and the codes of Paris,” said Slaoui. “We are like in an apartment here.”

This store renovation is backed by the largest investment in the history of Sephora Europe, according to Ponte, who would not divulge numbers.

Overall, the retailer aims to take a global-yet-local approach.

“Sephora is the only prestige beauty omnichannel retailer that is truly global. However, we want to ensure we stay relevant with the local consumer,” said Motte.

“Our new stores, such as the Champs-Élysées flagship, as our first London store and our newly renovated stores in Shanghai, Singapore and Wuhan, are sources of inspiration for our future renovations, as they illustrate our strategy and the experience we want to provide to our customers,” he said, adding Sephora also learns from other initiatives, such as its partnership with Kohl’s in the U.S.

“But there is no ‘template,’” said Motte. “Each of them must be meaningful locally and resonate with local communities.”

U.S. invested in homegrown system better suited for potential conflict in Pacific than in Middle East

Israel’s war with Hamas has revived dormant U.S. interest in producing munitions for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, U.S. Army and industry officials said, a development that would help a U.S. regional ally resupply for future conflicts.

Any U.S. manufacturer of Tamir interceptors would take months to get moving. But with Hamas and Hezbollah firing hundreds of rockets at Israeli military sites and cities every day, Israel’s stockpile of interceptor missiles is dwindling.

The new interest in production of Tamir interceptor missiles for the Iron Dome system comes two years after the Army passed over the Israeli hardware in favor of a U.S.-made system it deemed better suited for conflict in the Pacific.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system is one of the most battle-tested in the world, successfully destroying thousands of shells and rockets since its 2011 deployment and preventing mass civilian casualties.

“Iron Dome has proven itself over the years,” said Tom Karako, a missile defense researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s no slight that it can’t contend with an overwhelming number of threats.”

To help out, the U.S. Army is now sending back to Israel two Iron Dome units it acquired three years ago, alongside more than 200 Tamir missiles the U.S. had stored in its arsenal. The two units had been deployed after being tested in Guam.

The mobile Iron Dome is Israel’s last layer of air defense and can intercept targets up to 40 miles away. Each of the 10 batteries covers an area of about 60 square miles, and includes a radar and control system to identify incoming threats and fire only on those expected to reach populated or vulnerable areas, limiting how many missiles are required.

The Tamirs use a home-produced rocket motor that hasn’t suffered the level of supply-chain disruption that limited production of Javelins and the advanced guided missiles the U.S. has sent to Ukraine.

“They have a very capable military and they have their own stockpiles,” Army acquisition chief Doug Bush said earlier this month of Israel.

Meanwhile, militaries around the world, including the Pentagon and Israel, are moving to secure additional production of munitions. The vast consumption of artillery shells and guided missiles in Ukraine and of Tamir interceptors in Israel recently has honed defense officials’ focus on building “affordable mass”—a reliable arsenal of heavily used munitions.

In 2020, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and RTX Corp. announced plans to build a factory in the U.S. to assemble Tamirs.

But the following year, the Army passed over Iron Dome in favor of the Enduring Shield system made by U.S.-based Leidos, following a shoot-off in the New Mexico desert. Rafael and RTX’s new Tamir factory didn’t materialize.

The Pentagon’s push for more-sophisticated weapons and equipment to deter the perceived threat from China led the Army to favor the new U.S.-developed system seen as better able to tackle faster-moving cruise missiles over the bigger distances of the Pacific.

The Army called Iron Dome an interim solution and didn’t buy more than two, opting for the different capabilities of Enduring Shield, even though it has yet to be fielded.

“These are some of the growing pains of neglecting air defense for way too long,” said Karako.

Rafael and RTX declined to comment on Tamir production rates or on any new U.S. facility.

The Pentagon already funds much of Israel’s Iron Dome production and expenses under an existing agreement between the countries, which lawmakers have said was another catalyst for U.S. production.

RTX already makes around 70% of the Tamir, according to the companies, and has been investing heavily in expanding its missile facilities around Tucson, Ariz., which analysts said was one possible site for a Tamir line.

The Marine Corps is also looking to acquire some Iron Dome systems as well as around 1,800 Tamir missiles, according to budget documents.

Enduring Shield can be adapted to use other interceptors, including a version of the Tamir called SkyHunter.

Swiss pharma group acquires rights to develop and manufacture bowel disease treatment

Roche plans to buy immunology company Telavant from Roivant Sciences and Pfizer for over $7bn, as the drugmaker’s new chief executive seeks to replenish its drug pipeline. 

The Swiss company will acquire the rights to develop and manufacture Telavant’s potential drug for inflammatory bowel disease, which affects almost 8mn people worldwide. It will acquire the rights to sell it in the US, where there is a $15bn market for IBD, and in Japan.

Thomas Schinecker, who took over as Roche chief executive in March, said the drug, which is ready to start a late-stage trial, had “transformational potential”. 

Roche will pay $7.1bn upfront and a near-term milestone payment of $150mn. Pfizer will keep the commercialisation rights outside the US and Japan. Roivant owns 75 per cent of Telavant, while Pfizer owns 25 per cent. 

Schinecker said last month that the company was open to making large acquisitions, if they made financial sense. He was previously chief of the Roche diagnostics business, and is now focusing on improving the future of the pharmaceutical division with internal development and deals, after disappointments including two of its late-stage Alzheimer’s drug trials, which ended in failure last year.

This deal comes after Roche announced a partnership with Alnylam worth up to $2.8bn to work together on an innovative medicine for hypertension. 

Large pharmaceutical companies are increasingly interested in immunology — tackling diseases often caused by an overactive immune system — because of the large number of affected patients. AbbVie’s Humira, used for a range of autoimmune diseases, became the world’s best-selling drug but has recently had its market exclusivity expire.

Teresa Graham, chief executive of Roche’s pharmaceutical division, said more patients suffered from diseases of the immune system than from cancer, and the current drugs did not serve them well. Now, she said, the science was starting to evolve rapidly.

“Despite advances in therapy, there really have been no cures for these diseases. They’re incredibly impactful to individuals and to families. They put a lot of strain on healthcare systems,” she told the Financial Times.  

“As we understand more and more about the biology of the human immune system, we will continue to find new and novel ways to target these diseases, and potentially, not only create a really meaningful benefit for individual patients, but also remove a lot of burden off of global healthcare systems.”

Roche said that Telavant’s drug, known as RVT-3101, had the potential to be applied to conditions beyond inflammatory bowel disease, because the antibody tackles both inflammation and fibrosis. 

In a phase-2b trial of patients with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease, it improved clinical remission by 36 per cent in 56 weeks, compared with placebo. The trial also showed that the drug was safe.

Roivant Sciences, which has a portfolio of companies, was founded in 2014 by Vivek Ramaswamy, who is now running for US president. Ramaswamy owned a 7 per cent stake in the company, as of last month, but is no longer associated with running it.

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