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Joining De Rigo in January 2016, one of the world’s leading manufacturers and distributors of eyewear, I just knew I was making an exciting decision. But after a month of planning and anticipating De Rigo’s stand for February’s 100% Optical event, I was in for a real treat.
De Rigo announced an exclusive license agreement with British luxury brand Dunhill in September 2015, a brand synonymous with elegance and luxury. The idea of setting up a stand at 100% Optical in London’s Excel Centre, Docklands, was to celebrate the launch of Dunhill’s new 2016 eyewear collection. It all started when my manager, Abigail, took me to central London where we hunted for props that would depict the true British, luxurious Dunhill theme. Strolling through Farley in East Acton, we browsed through the huge warehouses packed with gorgeous satin teal stools, globes, vintage clocks, whisky glasses and silver ice buckets lined with the finest detail. I ran my fingers over the edges of a brass wall lamp and day dreamed about the design of our stand and how incredible I just knew it would look.
A month later, I arrived at 100% Optical on a windy Saturday morning, and was quite literally blown away by our beautiful stand. White acrylic outlined the stand with our brand images engraved into luminous bright lighting, as various POLICE, Chopard, Lanvin, Carolina Herrera, Lozza and Zadig & Voltaire eyewear trophied the shelves. Brass wall lamps shone down on a rather stunning black marble-surfaced bar, covered with an array of whisky glasses, silver trays, a globe and a golden vintage mirror. The wall behind the bar held a range of pristine golden, brown and black frames completed with different art; one being a painting of a bulldog.
And that brings me nicely onto Alfred the bulldog. It came to around 12:00PM and that’s when Alfred the bulldog arrived, all the way from Italy. The Italian bulldog was hired for the whole three days of 100% Optical, for only 3 hours a day, and I got chatting to Alfred’s owner who explained how he is a fully trained model dog and makes appearances at similar shows often. Alfred’s purpose at our stand was to add to the British theme and create some press, and boy did he! Photographers swarmed around our stand and in the moments of flashes and shouts of ‘can I take some pictures to write an article about your stand’, I felt as though I was in the midst of the paparazzi. I remember thinking how foreign this world was to me.
It got even better. Arriving with Alfred the bulldog was Dunhill models Hannah and Steve, who travelled from Scotland to make an appearance at De Rigo’s stand. Essentially they were there to look pretty, help out and wear our Dunhill and Chopard eyewear on the catwalk. Male model Steve even walked down the catwalk with little Alfred, which was quickly followed by our stand’s ‘happy hour’ at 5 o’clock where myself and the models handed out gin and tonic, Prosecco and branded trays of popcorn. The day went by as I helped meet, greet and push sales, and I couldn’t help but smile at how grateful I felt to be in this position. Just a few months ago I was in a real tough place after being made redundant, and now I’m here shaking the De Rigo Managing Director’s hand, who had traveled all the way from Italy just to see our masterpiece.
After a long but exciting day I rubbed my sore feet as I sat on the end of my bed with a cup of tea. I was back in my world again.
