Gulf News
2019
A century of exceptional craftsmanship
On protecting craft while pursuing scale, as Damas marks its centenary. Heritage as a commercial asset rather than a museum piece.
Key highlights
01
A centenary is a beginning of the argument, not the end of it.
02
Craft protected at scale becomes a defensible margin.
03
Heritage is an asset only when it is continuously re-earned.
From the feature
Gulf News marked the Damas centenary with a study of what a hundred years of craft is worth in a market moving at the pace of the Gulf.
The answer offered here is unsentimental: craft holds value when it is protected inside a modern operating model, and loses it the moment it becomes nostalgia.
Scale and craft are treated not as opposites but as a sequence, the second must survive the first.
Summary written for this site. The original feature is published by Gulf News.