The Beauty of Time Travel

How does one reinvent an old brand, and revive it in the 21st century? For Ramdane Touhami It all started with a Balzac novel, a flea market find, and a jolt of creative inspiration. Rebuilding one of Paris’ long-forgotten apothecaries, Officine Universelle Buly was reestablished in 2014. Polymath creative director and entrepreneur Touhami infused an appreciation for all things vintage with a spirit of conquest and innovation to offer a coveted-catalogue of premium products—often slightly quirky, but always elegant, refined, and delightful. A veritable handbook for creating a desirable, unique, and authentic brand, this book describes French savoir faire at its best, and recounts Buly’s unusual adventures from 1803 to the present, conveying the best of traditional retail, such as personalization and craftsmanship, with the indispensable values of today, like sustainability and digitalization.Extensively illustrated with prints and photographs, The Beauty of Time Travel takes readers on a journey across the centuries to discover the history of the perfumery, as well as of its design, typography, and advertising. This comprehensive work explores the themes of flamboyance and French-style service, Buly’s management philosophy, designing and producing the perfect product, fighting for a plastic-free range, and the need to ground the local within a globalized system. Presented by its protagonists, The Beauty of Time Travel dissects the Buly universe from A to Z, looking at it’s appetite for reinventing traditions whilst revealing the stories, tricks, and (almost) all its secrets.“When I approach a brand or a new territory, I go at it with an entrepreneurial mindset, with the belief that the beautiful and the good are not a luxury or a whim, instead the best, surest way to sell well and to sell better.” Ramdane TouhamiEach Officine Universelle Buly boutique throughout the world is an exemplary showcase of the rigor and care that the brand expends on its customer service. For Ramdane Touhami, a Buly boutique is akin to a cultural site with its sense of beauty, social norms, and etiquette from another era. The staff follows a very precise choreography in which all possibilities have been envisaged. Receiving a customer is an art, and the rules of courtesy and attention ultimately serve to make customers happy. “Approaching a customer is all about transmitting a sense of passion and telling a story. Everything goes through history, through the precious medium of how we recount things. The décor captures people’s attention, the story inspires their loyalty, and our politeness enchants them,” Ramdane Touhami explains.