The year 1912 witnessed the foundation of Zabbat by Nicolas Zabbat, a young Lebanese entrepreneur, who first created a leather tannery, which led the way to the leather goods trading business. In the years to follow while Nicolas Zabbat moved to Beirut, the business developed and grew to incorporate a variety of trade categories. With the 1950 acquisition of the Lebanese activities of Green and associates – A UK businessman with operation in the Middle East, Zabbat became one of the largest importers of a wide range of goods including cosmetics and textiles.
In the 50’s, a new industry was emerging – the industry of perfume and cosmetics - and since they are innovators with a vision for good business opprtunities, Zabbat invested in this growing industry in 1959. The company collaborated with companies such as Yves Saint Laurent, Jean d’Aveze, Charles Of the Ritz and Gianni Versace in both Lebanese and Middle-East markets. Furthermore, Jean-Claude Givenchy (Hubert’s brother) granted Zabbat the distribution rights for the perfume line of Givenchy.
By the early seventies the company was under the control of Marcel Accad – Nicolas’ Zabbat son in law - and his partner Georges Sarraf. Under this partnership, Zabbat bought the local perfume Manufacturer KAM in 1976, and launched a new basic line of cosmetics ALMA in 1980. With the addition of KAM to Zabbat group of companies, the business of perfume and cosmetics was regrouped under a new entity - KAM to be replaced later by DOME.
The fragrance lines of Beauté Prestige International, were added to Dome’s portfolio starting with Issey Miyake in 1992, Jean Paul Gaultier in 1993, Narcisco Rodriguez in 2003, and finally Elie Saab in 2011. Their latest addition is Azzedine Alaďa the International Fashion designer who signed with Beauté Prestige International a 13 years exclusive licensing agreement for creating, manufacturing and distributing his perfumes and cosmetics worldwide and expected to be launched in 2015.
While Dome was becoming one of the key players in the industry of perfume and cosmetics, Zabbat was focusing on the fashion market by acquiring Rodier master franchise in 1970, to be followed by Gerard Darel and the classic luxury brand WEILL, and a succession of high end European fashionbrands.
In order to support the advertising purchase by the ZABBAT-DOME group, ACSA was created in 1988. Today, it supports Zabbat, Modinvest and Dome in optimizing both above and below the line media buying, thanks to its well established and strong relationship with key media players in the market.
