The Right Start: a stationary business with a difference

A unique product and a passion to share it with others was the driving force behind Larissa Raheb’s decision to start an Italian stationery business - Little did she know her hobby would fast become a business success, writes Rebecca Spicer

Larissa Raheb laughs at the ‘renaissance woman’ nickname given to her by friends, but it’s her interest and skills in all things artistic that won her the title, and has helped bring success to her high-end stationery business, Duomo.

Other than considering she’d like to follow in her parents’ footsteps and own her own business one day, Raheb admits to having little direction when she left school. So she began dabbling in a range of creative endeavours, from sculpting and photography to music and graphic design. “I suppose all those studies were gearing up for what I wanted to do, I just hadn’t found it yet,” she says. Until now.

Since starting Duomo two years ago, Raheb is now able to combine all her interests, so whether it’s designing her own business brochures, ads or trade stand, or product photography or graphic design, she uses all her hobbies to build the business.

Raheb’s first experience in running a business was in partnership with a family member, running three beauty retail stores. “I learnt a lot of business basics really quickly doing that,” she says.

But once she decided to start a family, Raheb slowly pulled back from the business, leaving completely once she had her second child. “It was time to play mum for a while.”

But five years later she started to feel the creative itch. “I got to a stage a couple of years ago when I just really needed to be doing something else, and I just felt I’d be a better person and a better mother if I was doing something I really enjoyed.”

This is when the wheels for Duomo were really set in motion, but the idea for the business actually came about a few years earlier. “In 2000 when our first child was one we did a world trip. The best part of the trip was Europe and my favourite country was Italy, and Florence was my favourite city. The cobbled streets were just so romantic and charming and then you see the artisans in their little bottegas making their goods.

“You can watch them making marble tables or sculptures, but what I loved the most was the leather book-binding. There was just so much detail in what they did and just the smell of the leather was amazing. I’ve always loved stationery and it was just beautiful, so when I came home I brought back as many albums and journals as I could fit in my bag, just for myself.

“Following that there would be occasions when I had to get a gift for someone when I would think ‘oh it would be perfect if I could just find an album like the one I bought in Florence’. But I just couldn’t find anything anywhere. That’s when I recognised the need in the market.”

Raheb’s original vision was to introduce quality, handmade Italian stationery to the Australian market, and part of the business’s success so far, she says, has been because she’s stuck to this concept. “I remember people saying to me in the beginning, ‘why don’t you just get these done in China or India, it would be much cheaper?’ But you just can’t compare the quality. For me to compromise on that would be to compromise on the whole business concept, and it would become just like everything else already on the market.”

Maintaining the high quality means Raheb is limited in bringing in lower price points, but just keeps reminding herself of the original target market: “Those who are happy to pay a little extra for something that will be an heir loom, or something they can pass down, whether it’s a journal with memoirs or a photo album.”

And the business name reflects Raheb’s original vision, too. Given the books are of Florentine origin, she chose to call the business Duomo, after the ‘dome’ of the cathedral in the centre of Florence, which is an ancient landmark in the area.

Having experience in retail, and going to the GHA trade fairs as a buyer, Raheb recognised going wholesale would work best with her family commitments. So, with a business concept and name in mind, she spent a couple of years searching for the best artisans in Italy to work with. “The [supplier] I was looking for had to be true to the Italian workmanship and the quality, but they had to be big enough to cope with commercial orders, as well.”

To find them, Raheb took her time searching the internet and went over to Italy to meet potential suppliers and retrieve samples. “I brought lots of samples back here and got opinions from people as to what they thought would be a nice product, and comparing different styles of books.”