Anca Vlad is arguably very popular, with a career of great score and a financial situation to envy. It is one of the most successful entrepreneurs and the mastermind behind the Fildas business.
The luxury goods market was not well defined some years ago as most of the high class furniture importers were just responding to specific requests. Now the consumer segments have been given a contour and the further presence on the Romanian market of the top companies proves that there is still financial potential for the exclusivist offers.
We discussed about real estates, decorations and kitch with Anca Vlad, the founder of the pharmaceutical distribution group Fildas, a non-specialist that has the advantages of the business player’s experience, the moderation, the balance of a woman and the bending towards beauty of the art passionate.
We deal with a financial and economic crisis of great proportions, worried authorities, furious unions and no notorious bankruptcy. Not even in real estate, the hottest area of economics. Do I miss something?
I’m glad this didn’t happen. Probably people dug their feet in their business, they knew how to rationalize the costs and were supported by partners, sponsors, employees. It remains to be seen how things will evolve in the next period.
Leaving aside the sudden adjusting of the venues, the crisis forced us to be moderate even in what the self-imposed standards are concerned? That is, we gave up the dream of the Pipera villa, of the luxurious decorations, of the new apartments of thousand euros/square meters. Do we become moderate and reasonable again?
Certainly, this happens at a global level, not only in Romania. We have been suddenly awaked to reality by the crisis because we were the spenders of the last communist stream.
The tendency to make a splash through the possessions displayed led to many aggressive forms of kitch, be it architectural, through exaggerated dimensions and breaking away with the area’s context, be it – in interior appliances – through all kind of screechy, gaudy accessories, etc. Do you know any examples?
I saw that in Maramures, where it is even more painful than in Bucharest, where you do expect it. I saw those large traditional wooden doors replaced by inox doors. Or instead of the little wooden churches, now there were concrete monsters (I saw that somewhere very close to the Merry Cemetery of Sapanta). An early education of taste is needed, because people see owners and unaesthetic things everywhere, even in the real estate magazines, and the tendency to imitate is great. And concerning Bucharest…
“I personally hate walking through Baneasa, Pipera, etc. When I build my house in 1993, in Mogosoaia, I went for the style in fashion in the last years of the inter-war period, a more cubist style, with simple lines. I was even hoping to impose a style to the area, so that it be a guide mark. I now realize I was naïve, looking backwards at how the area later evolved.”
What do you think about the “corporate” architecture?
I cannot assert that everything that was built is unaesthetic; I personally like some of the office buildings from Victoria Square. The neighboring surroundings matter in exchange, because from the wrong combinations kitsch can result. Maybe it would have been better that all the business architecture be outside the city, like in Paris, so that the historic centre do not cohabitate with anything new.
Do you have a certain philosophy concerning the office organization? Do you transfer a part of the visual comfort of your home to your office?
I am a great art lover and I permanently seek exhibition spots even at the office. I like airy things, large spaces. I want warm colors, both for the furniture and for the walls. The walls play the role of support for the color. For instance, I have as a dominant color turquoise.
