Clinique La Prarie is one of the few luxury wellness organisations in the world that goes beyond the realms of wellbeing and uses proven scientific wellness combined with a holistic approach to help its clients live healthier lives for longer.
The term longevity is being increasingly used as a buzzword today, but there are few companies that truly understand the meaning and help whose treatments are proven to help clients live a healthy life for longer.
With its Middle Eastern clients regularly visiting the exclusive Clinique La Prairie clinic in the luxurious Montreux region of Switzerland, the wellness destination has built a loyal client base in the region which has led to the recent opening of the Clinique La Prairie Longevity Hub in Dubai. More recently the brand hosted a Longevity Lounge at Art Dubai, showcasing some of the hub’s exclusive treatments as well as reaffirming the brand’s connection to the art world. Here we caught up with CEO Simone Gibertoni to find out more about the concept of longevity and how the Swiss brand is the pioneer.
Tell us about the longevity hub at Art Dubai and why you chose to align with this platform.
We just opened the longevity hub at One & Only One Za’abeel, which is a very important step for us. We have a close link with this region, starting from the fact that we have many clients here. Why Art Dubai? We have a close connection with the arts and over the last few years, we have been investing in young Swiss artists and working to help expose them through our platforms. If you come to our clinic in Montreux you will find a beautiful exhibition of Swiss artists who created custom artworks for us. This is part of our CLP X Art project which supports emerging artists. So after the success of this, it seemed to make sense for us to be involved in Art Dubai and continue our journey into the world of art.
There are a lot of connections between art and longevity and we want to further explore that. Dubai is becoming a very important city for us and I think what we have done at One & Only One Za’abeel is probably the most evolved display of longevity you can see in the world today. We believe it is very important for the region and we are already experiencing very positive feedback.
What can you tell us about the concept of longevity, why it’s important today, and what are you trying to achieve as a company in relation to this?
For us, longevity is a very broad concept. It is about a long-term change of life. You can look at longevity from a marketing perspective, but in reality, for real results, you need to have a very strong intervention part and then comes the follow-ups. For us, follow-ups are what is important when it comes to longevity and to build a relationship with clients. What we have in Dubai is quite unique, not only in terms of the technology and machinery that we are using, but also the skill. We have longevity doctors who will offer preventative solutions. We really have the best working for us who will consider each client’s needs, going beyond the realms of a regular doctor.
We recommend our clients come to visit our clinic in Switzerland twice a year and then for the longevity hub, we would like to see them at least three times a week to create a regular routine. The point of longevity is personalisation. Despite what you read everywhere about wellness trends and methods, there is no one-fits-all solution. You need to have very precise diagnostics and we are the first to offer epigenetic testing around this. Now we have taken this one step further to more sophisticated testing that will highlight each individual’s needs. The point is that we will start with something and then we will fine-tune it until it works in the way our clients need it to. We will keep trying until we get it right. And every client reacts in a different way.
As a company how does your research keep up with the latest innovations and developments when things are happening so quickly?
This is not yet public, but I’m happy to share with you that we have decided to launch a fund that will create an innovation platform through which we can conduct further research. We are starting to propose to some of our clients to take part in this research as we want to collect findings that will allow us to have a strong impact in the world of longevity. We have a very serious approach to longevity and it is about more than just wellbeing. We are not only an external viewer into what’s happening in the science around longevity, we want to be involved in breakthroughs and developments in the sector.
Tell us about the Middle East and its close relationship with Clinique La Prairie.
The Middle East is a very important market for us. CLP in Switzerland is quite a unique place. We have 34 rooms with a maximum of 50 guests, 300 staff and 50 doctors. The setup is unique, and our clients are unique, so we provide a very special experience. We have people coming from all around the world but yes we do have many clients from the Middle East. I was recently in Kuwait and I met some very important people who have been coming to us for more than 50 years. There are families in the Middle East who have been coming to us for generations. This kind of loyalty is something really special. It’s not about the place because we have very simple rooms, but it is about the treatments and the experiences that these guests can get from our clinic.
The wellness industry has drastically evolved, especially after Covid–19. How would you assess the industry now and what clients are looking for from such platforms?
It is an interesting question beucase there is the marketing and the reality. The marketing is that everybody is a fan of longevity and everyone wants to focus on this, but if you look at the reality, things are a little different. For a player like La Prairie, there are very few of us, and the reality is that there are not so many people that are ready to invest in their seirous personal longevity. In time, this will change, but when you do these processes of course, it’s also expensive, so it is not for everyone.
There is a lot of awareness in the market and I think it’s a market that’s evolving and growing. But there is also a lot of marketing that is maybe not doing so much good. What I think is important is to keep a very scientific approach and to be very serious about it. For us, we call it the three Cs approach: Care – because your final objective should be to take care of people. Confidence – confidence in what you are doing, as there are a lot of people out there who don’t know what they are doing. And Customisation – you need to be very precise with the customisation you are offering.
The longevity market is still quite small but it is growing very quickly and especially after covid, people are aware of the importance of health. The most important change is the mindset shift from genetic to epigenetic. Twenty years ago, you would be told that the way you are is about genetics. If you get a disease, etc., it is genetic. Today we know that this is only 10 or 15 per cent genetic, and 80 per cent of what influences how we are is epigenetic, the expression of the gene and our lifestyles. So, from this came the idea that we can act and impact our longevity with our lifestyle choices.
What are most clients looking for when they come to you?
They want to be healthier. They want to have a healthier life for a longer period of time. The first thing we do when people come to us is work on the objective, and then we use science to tailor this to work for them. There are no two programmes that are the same. The most popular programmes we have in Switzerland are the Master Detox and the Realitisation which focuses on the immune system. On top of this, there is the diagnostic pack and within all of those, we will personalise the programme for each client.
Why should our readers visit the longevity hub?
This idea of finding under the same roof all the skills and tools that you need to start a journey of deeper personalisation of treatments to help you live a healthier life. We are working on healthspan, not lifespan — living better for longer and being healthier for longer. You can come every day to work with the best experts who will create a plan to change your life. Then, on top of this, come and visit us in Switzerland once per year.
