Mounir Moufarrige

Mounir Moufarrige is a brand developer and creator. Best known for shifting Alfred Dunhill from a smokers to a life style brand, reviving Montblanc 'making the pen a cult object of desire', hiring Stella McCartney at Chloé, and helping to turn the historic Goyard brand into a global commercial success. He is also noted for spotting the future trend of larger sized watches in Panerai. He started his career in luxury fashion and lifestyle in 1988, after 3 years of training as a sales promotion rep at Rothmans International,

Career

1985 - 1999: Dunhill, Montblanc, Chloe, Karl Lagerfeld

In 1985, he joined Alfred Dunhill where soon after as Chief Executive of its Product Divisions, turned the company over from tobacco and lighters to tailoring, leather and watches. He worked a similar scale transformation with another brand in the Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA portfolio, Montblanc, focusing solely on the development of the Meisterstuck pen, pulling the brand's 300 or so other pen models to do so. He then moved to running Richemont’s coterie of fashion Labels; Chloé and Karl Lagerfeld as president from 1992 to 1999.

While at Chloé, he replaced Karl Lagerfeld with the then 24-year-old British designer Stella McCartney charging her to turn the label into a younger, more dynamic brand. He also spotted the talent of Phoebe Philo — then just 23 years old as McCartney’s first assistant, who subsequently succeeded McCartney as head designer at Chloé 5 years later.

2002- 2005: France Luxury Group, Goyard, U-Boat

In 2002 he became CEO of the newly formed France Luxury Group, which owned the labels Jean Louis Scherrer, Jacques Fath, Emmanuelle Khanh and Harel, before moving on to relaunching the label of Charles Frederick Worth, the historically recognised father of haute couture and Fashion, using lingerie, Couture and fragrance as signature categories for the brand.

Having previously spotted the potential larger size watches in Officine Panerai while at Richemont, in 2005 Moufarrige joined forces with Italo Fontana, the creator of the U-Boat and Welder watches, to turn them into well-recognized international timepiece brands.

In 2003, he joined Goyard, helping to turn the label that was founded in 1853 as a maker of trunks, but shuns modern advertising and employs no well-known designers, into a global commercial success.

2006- 2009: Emanuel Ungaro

Simultaneously, whilst still actively working on U-BOAT watches and Goyard, Moufarrige became president and chief executive officer at Emanuel Ungaro in 2006 where he stayed until 2009 presiding over the development of the declining momentum of the historic Italian label, hiring actress Lindsay Lohan as artistic advisor to the creative director Estrella Archs. Mounir left Ungaro in 2009

2009 - Present Day: S.T Dupont, U- Boat, Christina Debs, Larcum Kendall

Having recently joined S.T. Dupont as Vice Chairman of The Supervisory board in 2009, Mounir has been leading the push to bring its history back to life, repositioning the brand toward a younger and more fashion-orientated consumer and expanding into new product categories, including women’s leather goods in 2011.

Mounir remains President at U-Boat. On January 31, 2014, took a minority stake in Franco-Lebanese designer Christina Debs Jewelry line, with a view to expanding it internationally.

Also in 2014, after 5 years of research, Mounir Moufarrige acquired one of the oldest British watch brand names: L.KENDALL , LONDON 1742. Larcum Kendall is recognised for his major contributions in accurately pinpointing longitude position at sea.

Together with designer Italo Fontana, the brand was presented at the 2014 Basle Watch Fair.