Domestica, the furniture manufacturer and luxury interiors importer, is to move to a new, state-of-the-art showroom just 200 metres away from its current premises in Valley Road, Msida, early next year.
The 2,200-square metre four-floor building will incorporate extensive display areas, a show apartment, offices for rent, and parking facilities.
The relocation also coincides with a restructuring of the Vassallo Cesareo family’s business to handle the company’s envisaged growth.
An overseeing financial controller and a sales and marketing manager reporting to the sales and marketing director has been added to the team. A factory manager with over 30 years’ experience in furniture manufacturing has also been newly appointed. The Domestica team is currently made up of 22 people, further complemented by sub-contracted staff.
Domestica’s new premises will serve to showcase its growing portfolio of leading international brands to better effect. An atrium will feature a shop-in-shop concept for brands of accessories, table and kitchen ware and bed linen. There will be wide seating ranges by Nicoletti Home (a recent addition to the portfolio) and Berloni on display, as will a comprehensive collection of Berloni bedrooms, complete with accessories and carpeting.
Kitchens will be displayed on the next floor, a walk-through collection of modern and classic models. A show apartment will be laid out to give customers ideas for holistic design options, including garden furnishings.
The second floor will be dedicated to contract business (with corporate customers including restaurants, retail outlets and hotels, Domestica’s manufacturing arm is a brand in itself) and offer furnishing options for second homes and summer residences.
“Besides allowing us to display more pieces from each collection of the 15 brands Domestica represents, the showrooms will enable us to showcase a family and home experience,” sales and marketing director Francesca Cassar told The Times Business. “The show apartment, for instance, will be designed in such a way that customers can place an order for an entire room’s contents. There will also be a wider selection of designer office furniture on display.”
The fact that a considerable amount of space in the new building is being dedicated to contract and individual orders underlines the Vassallo Cesareos’ belief in the furniture manufacturing sector. This industry has witnessed considerable shrinkage over the past few years with many manufacturers downsizing their operation.
“The business is there,” Domestica managing director Chris Vassallo Cesareo, insists. “We strongly believe in manufacturing and it is an integral part of our business but our philosophy has always dictated that we keep our feet on the ground.
“We enjoy a significant amount of repeat business and we have a lot of custom from interior designers who still want to make their mark with bespoke furniture which we manufacture. Once the showroom is open, our marketing campaign for both arms of our business will become more aggressive.”
The second-generation Vassallo Cesareos grew up in this particular business and any addition to their brand line-up has to meet their own very high personal standards – standards set by their experience in manufacturing.
“When we visit trade events or travel to brand headquarters, we know exactly what we are looking for,” Mr Vassallo Cesareo added. “Furniture is our core business. It has always been our business – we did not wake up one day and decide to start to import furniture. The market is too competitive to test it. We cannot afford to do that. We have to get it right from the outset.”
The family has been in the business for just over 40 years.
Leo Vassallo Cesareo officially founded the company on January 2, 1969, with his estate agent brother-in-law and cousin, as Abbott and Dominic (Malta) Ltd.
The company name was a signature of Mr Vassallo Cesareo’s ingenuity: he believed the first thing the so-called six-penny settlers who came to Malta in droves in the 1960s did on landing was consult trade directories for suppliers. Hence Abbott and Dominic – the name would sit at the top of the alphabetical list. By incorporating “Malta”, the name made the company seem international and would catch people’s attention.
Although the company was originally established with a view to service Mr Vassallo Cesareo’s partners’ portfolio properties, it never really fulfilled the function. The company’s business concentrated on manufacturing furniture for the island’s most prominent hotels of the time. One fine day, one of the partners returned from London, having placed an order for several thousand pounds’ worth of carpets and a warehouse was acquired in Marsa to accommodate the shipment.
The warehouse soon served to house a joinery and furniture operation. Malta was by then in the midst of the government’s prolonged import substitution policy – imports were banned and there were hefty taxes and levies on furnishings.
With consumers having to buy locally made furniture, Domestica’s order book boomed and the manufacturing business moved to larger premises in Attard’s industrial park in 1974. Like most of Malta’s other leading furniture manufacturers of the time, the company weighed its options as it sought expansion. Mr Vassallo Cesareo signed an agreement with prestigious British chair and suite maker Parker Knoll to manufacture its products under licence in Malta. Under the agreement, the company introduced Parker Knoll’s orthopaedic chair to the Maltese market and it was a runaway success.
Soon after, Mr Vassallo Cesareo signed a similar agreement with Marcello Berloni to manufacture the Italian firm’s kitchens in Malta. To this day, the moment is one of considerable pride for Mr Vassallo Cesareo. Before import liberalisation, Malta was the only country to have sealed a contract of this nature with Berloni and the relationship between the two family businesses grew increasingly stronger with time.
By the early 1980s, Abbott and Dominic (Malta) Ltd had firmly secured its position as a household name and the company was renamed Domestica Ltd although Abbott and Dominic was retained as the parent company’s name. In the mid-1980s, the Gasan family acquired a 50 per cent stake in the operation but resold it to the Vassallo Cesareos four years later to pursue other business ventures.
Domestica continued to build its portfolio of individual and corporate clients. Mr Vassallo Cesareo’s children, first Chris, then his younger sister Francesca, joined the business, and the founder handed over the reins and retired.
The second generation set about consolidating Domestica’s position in the market. Liberalisation brought new trends and the company responded by securing exclusive representation of a collection of high-end international designer brands.
The portfolio now includes Casamia furniture, Steelcase office furniture, Fatboy, Asa and Guzzini accessories, and Wanabo and Indel B wine cellars.