A NOEL ASMAR PROMOTION
POWER OF BRAND MESSAGE
Isadore Sharp, founder of Four Seasons Hotels says, ‘Front line employees represent our product to our customers. In the most realistic sense, they are our product. Those few moments of service delivery are a company’s make or break point, when reputation is either confirmed or denied.’ Sharp’s words are Asmar’s mantra. She attests that the way staff look and feel is as valid as their training and expertise for being sound brand ambassadors.
‘MADE FOR THE WAY YOU MOVE’
CLIENT EXPERIENCE It’s all about ease with Noel Asmar: from the ‘made for the way you move’, company tagline, to the way of conducting business. When Asmar says: “We urge our clients to lean on us. We’re experts in the field of uniforms and can offer valuable advice that will save both time and money,” she’s referring to the deliberately personal approach. Each potential client is appointed
their own business manager who gets to know the brand, property and precise job functions they’re looking to uniform – from front desk to housekeeping and F&B or even the entire workforce (as at MGM Las Vegas) – in order to seamlessly facilitate the selection and ordering process. This is made easier still thanks to a staff mix of ethnic backgrounds spanning nine languages and a sensitivity to cultural difference. The company prides itself on being a design house offering custom styling solutions. However with 8,000 SKUs in inventory, in every colour from ‘spicy berry’ to ‘powder blue’, it makes fiscal sense to stick with off-the-peg. Every style variation from a cap sleeve or rouched waist to a fully tailored suit is available from XXS to 5XL, plus maternity styles. Yet the in-house designers, including
Asmar herself, love creating subtle ways for clients to stay on brand or culturally in-tune, with bespoke embroidery, digital screen printing and dye-casts. The company has recently created original prints based on indigenous motifs to trim the spa uniforms for the Four Seasons in Bora Bora.
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spabusiness.com issue 1 2015 ©CYBERTREK 2015
There are no minimums and orders
received by noon are shipped the same day. Most garments are manufactured in Canada but some production is deliberately outsourced to China for ease of servicing a growing Asian clientele.
NOEL ASMAR’S STORY Asmar’s recent recognition as one of the Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs in Canada, 2014 is testament to life’s adage that passion leads to success. She was holding down her ‘day job’ in hotel management when her love of design took off in the night markets of Ho Chi Minh City. She was having clothes made for her friends and family while working in Vietnam when she realised this was her real metier. Her move into the fashion business took seed once back home in
Canada when she designed a uniform to take her then pregnant, aesthetician sister out of the unflattering ‘boxy smock/white lab coat’ into fashionable workwear that really made her feel good. “It was clear that there was a dire need
for a feminine, thoughtfully designed tunic made especially for the spa and wellness professional,” says Asmar who started her new career officially in 2002 with one style in three colours, under her original brand:
www.spauniforms.com, then the first online offering. Still 25-30 per cent of new business comes from online searches. Here she is, 12 years and one name
change later, a pivotal player (and ISPA board member) in an industry that’s evolved alongside her strong belief that proper spa uniforms are indeed a key component of their brand.
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