{"id":391944,"date":"2025-07-17T15:32:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T18:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=391944"},"modified":"2025-07-17T15:39:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T18:39:17","slug":"luxury-furniture-ornare-expands-projects-in-gulf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/luxury-furniture-ornare-expands-projects-in-gulf\/","title":{"rendered":"Luxury furniture: Ornare expands projects in Gulf"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The Brazilian luxury furniture brand Ornare has officially completed its first project in Saudi Arabia: a custom kitchen installed in a residential palace in capital Riyadh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project was carried out by architects Shalise Basso and Carina Fontes, who lead Ornare<\/a>\u2019s only franchise in the Middle East, opened in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in March 2022, following the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Ornare
Ornare opened a franchise in the UAE in 2022<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The installation marks progress in building a project base in the Saudi capital in anticipation of opening a showroom in the city. The showroom had been previously announced and remains part of the architects\u2019 plans. However, the expected opening is now scheduled for early next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the process of documentation,\u201d says Shalise Basso. \u201cWhen you compare Saudi Arabia [to the UAE], it\u2019s a bit behind in terms of [foreign] investment, but this is changing quickly,\u201d she added. \u201cWe already have clients and projects, and I believe the store will be open by early next year,\u201d she told ANBA.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Showroom
Showroom in Dubai: Luxury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the past three years, Basso and Fontes\u2019s franchise has entered a phase of consolidation. The showroom in Dubai, previously located in Opus Tower, a stern business-hotel complex, moved last year to Citywalk, a vibrant mixed-use space in the Emirati metropolis, featuring residential buildings, offices, leisure facilities, restaurants, and open-air shops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the new location, the sales team has grown. The showroom gained a more spacious environment for events aimed at architects, a key audience for the brand, who, according to Basso and Fontes, generate 60% of the franchise\u2019s projects by specifying Ornare. The rest come from social media leads, relationships with developers and contractors, as well as occasional customers who enter the store to dream about a new kitchen and often leave with a commissioned project, sometimes for the entire house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their effort to win over Dubai architects, the franchisees gained the trust of XBD, an architecture firm based in London and Dubai with several completed projects on Palm Jumeirah, the famous palm-shaped islands of the emirate, home to global celebrities. The trust reached the point that Ornare Dubai, for example, furnished the home of one of XBD\u2019s partners, according to Carina Fontes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe could have had her house done by any company,\u201d she said, referring to the fact that XBD works with all the major luxury furniture brands and internationally renowned architects. \u201cBut we [Ornare Dubai] were the ones who did it,\u201d she continued. \u201cXBD is very big here, with many luxury projects, and this is a very important achievement for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Ornare
Ornare project on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The close relationship with architects who specify projects throughout the UAE and even in neighboring countries recently led to a series of projects in Abu Dhabi, one of them in the luxury Saadiyat Island complex<\/a>. In fact, the partners see even more potential to eventually open a new showroom in the emirate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbu Dhabi is an even bigger market than Dubai,\u201d assesses Carina Fontes. \u201cDubai showcases a quiet luxury that doesn\u2019t feel the need to show off. In Abu Dhabi, grandeur is everywhere, especially in the homes. Also, there are many Europeans already accustomed to luxury. Sales are, so to speak, easier, and the potential is huge,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slow and steady work<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When they opened the showroom in Dubai, their biggest challenge was convincing professionals and clients who were used to the most sophisticated furniture brands in the world to work with a Latin brand that, although a luxury reference in Brazil and respected in the United States and Europe, was unknown in the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Architects
Architects Carina and Shalise: lots of hard work, persistence, and partnership<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The business\u2019s current stage was achieved, as Carina Fontes put it, through \u201cslow and steady work.\u201d The product\u2019s quality certainly helped, but above all, it was the architects\u2019 willingness to build relationships with clients that made the difference\u2014a factor highly valued in Arab culture, where transactions only happen when there is trust between the parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs an architect [before opening the franchise], we couldn\u2019t find that willingness [to build relationships] here. We really missed that in the market, so we realized that our edge would be the service\u2014the personal touch, being warm, having the patience for three- or four-hour meetings, months-long negotiations,\u201d said Basso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the UAE, several families live in the same house. Discussing an entire project takes time. We take advantage of that, getting everyone in the family involved. We might start negotiating a project with the father and end up closing another with the son. We also focus on customizations. Other stores have wonderful products, but with fewer possibilities than ours,\u201d Basso continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This care in building relationships extends to the clients\u2019 architects as well. \u201cEven if the client comes here with a floor plan or with their own architect, we help in the creative process, with our professional suggesting something different, and from there a relationship [with the architect] begins,\u201d says Carina Fontes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About Ornare<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ornare was founded in S\u00e3o Paulo in 1986. The production that supplies its clients and the 14 owned and franchised showrooms in Brazil, as well as the other 11 in the US, UAE, and Italy, comes from a single factory in Cotia, S\u00e3o Paulo state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to these locations, the brand recently announced three more showrooms in Recife, Campo Grande, and Balne\u00e1rio Cambori\u00fa, two others in Boston and Washington, US, and its first one in Portuguese capital Lisbon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new showrooms already have set locations. All are expected to open between the end of this year and the first half of next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more<\/em>:
Brazil\u2019s Ornare opens custom furniture showroom in Dubai<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Report by Daniel Medeiros, in collaboration with ANBA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ornare\/Supplied<\/div>
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The brand\u2019s franchisees in Dubai advance in Abu Dhabi, complete installation in Saudi Arabia, and reaffirm plans to open a showroom in Riyadh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2349,"featured_media":391901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[11909,19629,29752,9621,4083,35464,2063,29767,27335,29768],"class_list":{"0":"post-391944","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business-opportunities","8":"tag-abu-dhabi-en-2","9":"tag-architecture-en","10":"tag-carina-fontes-en","11":"tag-dubai-en","12":"tag-furniture","13":"tag-luxury","14":"tag-middle-east","15":"tag-ornare-en","16":"tag-riad-en-2","17":"tag-shalise-basso-en"},"wps_subtitle":"The brand\u2019s franchisees in Dubai advance in Abu Dhabi, complete installation in Saudi Arabia, and reaffirm plans to open a showroom in Riyadh.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2349"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}