Eight years after launching from Brisbane, MAISON de SABRÉ has made its Paris debut at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche, confirming its place among the world’s new generation of luxury houses.
2 min
Australian design house MAISON de SABRÉ has opened a pop-up at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche, marking its first Paris appearance and celebrating eight years of extraordinary growth for the brand founded by brothers Omar and Zane Sabré.
The residency, running from October 25, 2025, to January 3, 2026, positions the self-funded label within one of the world’s most exclusive retail destinations — a milestone that cements its status as one of Australia’s most successful global luxury exports.
Since its founding in 2017, MAISON de SABRÉ has evolved from a personalised phone case start-up into a $100 million modern luxury business, now shipping to more than 150 countries.
Around 80 per cent of its sales come from international markets, proof that its clean, design-led aesthetic and commitment to craftsmanship have global appeal.
At the centre of the Paris showcase is The Palais, the brand’s flagship handbag and new icon. Conceived over eight years, its architectural form represents MAISON de SABRÉ’s shift from personalised accessories to the rarefied territory of luxury fashion.
“The industry loves to romanticise heritage,” says co-founder Zane Sabré. “But heritage doesn’t guarantee relevance. The Palais proves you don’t need a century of history to create something iconic – you need conviction, execution, and a brand people actually believe in.”
Brother and creative director Omar Sabré adds, “Hermès has the Birkin. We have The Palais.”
Following its global sell-out debut earlier this year, The Palais now leads the brand’s international assortment and signals its arrival in the global handbag market.
The Le Bon Marché installation features multiple sizes of the bag, alongside the full collection of handbags and small leather goods. A Charm Bar offering on-site personalisation brings the brand’s signature interactive retail experience to the Paris stage.
The pop-up follows a string of high-profile activations in Tokyo, New York and Milan, where MAISON de SABRÉ has demonstrated its ability to reinterpret traditional luxury through a modern, design-forward lens.
Its recent flagship experience at Tokyo’s Miyashita Park placed the brand alongside Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada and Balenciaga — a move that signalled its ambition to compete at the highest level.
Underpinning MAISON de SABRÉ’s rise is a quiet but resolute commitment to sustainability and responsible production. The brand sources all leather from Leather Working Group Gold-Rated tanneries, including a Dutch partner pioneering waterless tanning technology that saves up to 20 litres of freshwater per hide.
Its charm collections are crafted from upcycled leather offcuts, demonstrating that environmental awareness can coexist with luxury design.
For a brand that began in Australia with a single monogrammed accessory, the Paris debut at Le Bon Marché is more than a retail event. It’s a statement — that modern luxury can be born anywhere, thrive without legacy, and redefine craftsmanship for a global audience.
Travellers are swapping traditional sightseeing for immersive experiences, with Africa emerging as a must-visit destination.
A survey of people with at least $1 million in investable assets found women in their 30s and 40s look nothing like older generations in terms of assets and priorities
New research suggests that bonuses make employees feel more like a mere cog in a wheel.
2 min
When it comes to rewarding workers financially, cash isn’t always king.
Companies frequently give employees monetary bonuses, but a new study suggests that paid vacation time is a perk employers should also consider.
The study’s authors say that while they didn’t explicitly look into whether employees prefer time off, the study found that receiving extra vacation time rather than bonus money makes workers feel less like a mere cog in a wheel and more like people who are recognised and valued as individuals with a life beyond work.
It makes them feel more human, in the researchers’ terms.
And that feeling benefits employers as well as employees, says Sanford DeVoe, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the study’s authors.
Feeling more human is strongly correlated with higher job satisfaction, greater engagement with work, better relationships with colleagues and less inclination to leave a job, he says.
In one experiment, the researchers asked about 1,500 participants to recall times when they received a monetary bonus or paid time off—all had received both—and how that made them feel.
Participants responded to the question on a 7-point scale, from feeling more like a robot on the low end of the scale to feeling more human on the high end. Monetary bonuses were given an average score of 5.04, compared with 5.4 for paid vacation time.
“While that difference may sound modest numerically, it represents a meaningful psychological shift,” says DeVoe. “It’s the difference between feeling neutral and feeling genuinely seen as a person.”
The authors then sought to better understand why paid vacation time made employees feel more human. In another experiment, about 500 participants were asked to imagine starting a new job where they might be awarded a bonus. Some were told the bonus would be an extra week of vacation, others were told it would be an extra week of pay.
Participants were then asked about their expectations for being able to keep their work and home lives separate in the new job. Those who could hope for a bonus of extra time off expected more separation between their work and personal lives than those whose potential bonus would be extra pay.
They also reported feeling more human on the 7-point scale. This suggested to the researchers that time off makes people feel more human because it creates a clearer psychological distance from work than a monetary bonus.
In a third experiment, the researchers further tested the idea that clear boundaries between work and personal lives were driving their results.
Two hundred participants were told to imagine being on a vacation and receiving two texts, including one from their mother. Half were told the second text was from a friend and half were told the second text was from their boss.
The authors then measured how human participants felt after each scenario. The average score for those receiving a text from a friend was 5.4 on the 7-point scale, compared with 4.16 for those receiving a text from the boss.
The difference in the scores “demonstrates that even minimal work intrusions can undo the psychological benefits of time off,” says DeVoe. “It shows that it’s not just time away that matters—it’s whether work actually lets go.”
All of this is important for employers looking to get the most out of their workers, he says. “For managers concerned with sustainable productivity, giving people uninterrupted time away from work can be a powerful lever.”
