Precious Addition

Northcliff Capital is taking Allysa Payne’s luxurious line of accessories from Beverly Hills to Jakarta, as Managing Director Christian Prokscha explains to Edith Emeralda

While preparing for a trip to Europe, it was the ballerina flats that she couldn’t find while standing in Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills. So she got on that flight and started sketching her own with a desire to create comfortable yet elegant, unique, and luxurious shoes. This became a mission fuelled by her passion and background in design. To create something she could not find.

At the age of 25, Allysa Payne flew alone to Marrakech, Morocco, to buy the leather and have the first prototypes made. When the factory turned out not to be what she had in mind, she took the leather that she had purchased and travelled to another factory in Casablanca. When that factory could not produce the quality she desired, she visited factories in France, Spain, and Brazil, and finally decided on a factory in Italy: the region of luxury shoes, and a factory that also produces items for brands such as Gucci, Chanel, and Prada, to name a few. She built strong relationships with these special familyowned Italian factories.

Thanks to her drive and determination, the brand Allysa Payne Beverly Hills has grown from a dream to create something special to a household name around the posh parts of California in the last few years, as well as the Uae—and Indonesia is next. Brought by Northcliff Capital, a fast-growing private equity and investment company, Allysa’s up-and-coming product is a good strategy for its international expansion. “Allysa Payne Beverly Hills is our very first foray into the fashion industry, and the high-end one at that,” Christian Prokscha, Managing Director of Northcliff Group said. “We realised that she has unique designs and products, and these will fit quite well into the Indonesian market.”

Thus far, Allysa has been designing and marketing her own products through online channels and private events besides small showcases in select independent luxury boutiques and hotels in international cities and countries including Beverly Hills, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and recently Indonesia and Singapore. “Our idea of growth consists of two directions for the US market at the moment: one is to go into high-end department stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys New York, and Bergdorf Goodman in the next three months, while we strengthen the online and celebrity channels” Christian said. He plans to adopt a similar strategy over time for the Indonesian market with hopes to collaborate with local designers in the future.

However, there’s no true high-end boutique here similar to the US stores, he remarked. “We plan to focus more on doing private events and really advancing a digital approach before opening pop-up stores and exhibitions. Allysa’s brand is exclusive luxury and our strategy will target a very exclusive entry into Indonesia.” As more of Allysa’s products arrive in Indonesia for these events, buyers will be delighted to find that she has started to design for men’s fashion and has expanded beyond heels and pumps to trendy backpacks and sneakers that include her style of exclusive printed skins.

“At the moment, she is also creating perfume as well as make-up such as lipstick and the airbrush make-up kit,” Christian said. “For the perfume, Allysa is designing the bottle herself as well as the scent, and she is connected with the top Italian suppliers to launch it by the end of the year.”

Other than welcoming Allysa into the Northcliff family, as part of the broader strategy the company is further growing into securities,

life insurance, and asset management. “Our portfolio is quite diverse now and includes properties such as commercial buildings, hotels, villas, and the latest a day-club: the Ulucliff House in Uluwatu, Bali,” Christian said. “Besides Allysa, in the sports and lifestyle section we have interests in PSMS Medan FC, and plans to build a sports academy.” Moreover, Northcliff has investments in the hospitality industry, with restaurants in Singapore and Bali, and is expanding quite rapidly into the commodities portfolio.

In the end, according to Christian, the idea of Northcliff coming in and investing is to drive the creators’ ideas forward. “When you are a designer, such as in the example of Allysa’s story, you are thinking in a different way to those of a private investor or private equity— growth and returns are important to us, while retaining identity and increasing her market share for her products are important to her,” he said. “From now on, we are moving forward to join these visions together.”

In the end, according to Christian, the idea of Northcliff coming in and investing is to drive the creators’ ideas forward.