Emotion loos

Not too many large businesses of an international stature can claim to be more than 250 years old and still thriving. Which makes Luitwin Gisbert Von Boch-Galhau, the eighth generation of the family that founded the premium European ceramics maker Villeroy & Boch in 1748, the equivalent, let’s say, of the House of Windsor. It’s a measure of how important a “growing” economy like India is becoming to premium brands across the world that 73-year-old Von Boch, CEO for a long 20 years and now honorary member of its supervisory board, should himself fly down to India to kickstart V&B’s latest retail thrust in the country — a series of exclusive V&B “bath and wellness” stores in the metros.

V&B is a well-known enough brand in India, only it’s known more for its premium tableware. Few people here know the brand for its “bath and wellness” range — bathtubs, washbasins, WCs, taps and fittings, tiles and everything else that goes into making the bathroom a room you can flaunt.

V&B has had a dealer for its bathware in Mumbai for close to a decade now. But it now wants to step up its presence in the subcontinent with a newly-formed India subsidiary, a new management team and 14 dealers all over. “We have to be in India,” Von Boch declares with Gallic emphasis, still wearing the string of marigolds his Indian staff have garlanded him with to celebrate the first grandiosely named “House of Villeroy & Boch” in Gurgaon.

The reason is not far to seek — the downturn in V&B’s home markets with sales declining 16.7 per cent for the third quarter 2009. Last March, V&B acquired Thailand’s Nahm Sanitaryware, giving it a base in the fast-growing ASEAN markets. “One day we’ll have production facilities in India,” promises von Boch, all enthusiasm as he recounts something someone told him at the impromptu party that preceded the store opening in Gurgaon — that Indians redecorate their bathrooms every eight to nine years, far more frequently than Europeans, for whom the norm is 15 years.

Elegant design and exquisite craftsmanship, classic shapes and clean lines are the hallmarks of V&B products. In white and made of Quaryl, the material that gives V&B products its smooth finish, precise shapes and pristine iridescence, set off nicely by the dark-wood trimmings, the metallic glint of the taps and fixtures, the surrounding tiles in darker colours and rougher textures, V&B, claims von Boch, bring “emotion into the bathroom”. “Especially in these difficult times,” he continues, “the bathroom is becoming the living room, not just functional but also cosy with it.”

All the best-known V&B products are here — the Ultimate Fitness whirlpool system with its 16 pop-jets that can be adjusted via remote control, the oval Aveo range and moulded Pure Stone, the Smartbench (a WC with a wood cover that doubles as a bench), the very latest Memento and La Belle series, as also V&B’s green innovations in water-saving WCs.