2_DiscoverBenelux_Issue21_Sep_2015_Q9_Scan Magazine 1 28/08/2015 20:45 Page 16
Discover Benelux | Bathroom Design | Créations Gillet
Turn on the tap, fill up with style The bathroom says more about our individual views on design than any other room in the house. But with bathroom materials, technology and trends changing constantly it can be tough deciding on exactly what style we’re after, let alone getting the details right. Créations Gillet aims to guide clients through that maze and provide a one-stop-shop to take a concept and make it a reality. TEXT: MARTIN PILKINGTON | PHOTOS: COURTESY OF CRéATIONS GILLET
“If you have to source all the tradesmen needed to install a bathroom yourself it can be incredibly complicated to co-ordinate the tilers, electricians, plumbers, heating engineers, installers... We do everything in-house, no sub-contracting, so we can be sure of the quality of work and the installation time,” explains Sylvie Gillet, daughter of the Création Gillet’s founder, and now one of the management team that runs the business: “We can install the complete room, from flooring to ceiling and everything in-between in a week, instead of it dragging on for three or four weeks and beyond that can happen otherwise.” The company was started in 1980 by Sylvie’s father Marc, originally as a small specialist tile shop in Bastogne in Belgium. It soon needed to move to bigger premises, and a second
16 | Issue 21 | September 2015
branch opened in Luxembourg in 1990. “But the really big change in the business came about some 20 years ago when it was decided to develop the concept of providing a complete offer for bathrooms, from A to Z, everything that goes in them, and the skilled personnel to fit all of that too,” says Sylvie.
A family affair Today it’s still very much a family business, the team of 35 including four members of the second generation who are closely involved in the technical and managerial sides of the company’s activities. But the current Bastogne shop is a world away from their first premises, with a 1,000-square-metre showroom whose high-end displays often provide the first inspiration for their clients. “Our interior designers can work with clients, talk to them to explore precisely what they want,
maybe suggest some solutions that they aren’t aware of, and draw up plans with them." “Fashions and styles change rapidly, as does the range of products available to the designer and the end user,” she explains: “For example illuminated walls and ceilings for the bathroom are now being incorporated into some high-end designs, and sound systems in the shower. And the touch controls that can be installed now for bathroom appliances are elegant and really stylish.”
Classical to contemporary A stroll around the showroom demonstrates their approach of offering the customer choice, rather than focussing solely on this year’s trends, though there are plenty of eyecatching über-contemporary items on dis-