It was 1968 when a small local furniture shop opened in Messina. The founder, Franca Mollura, brought with her the artisan experience matured by her family in her father’s carpentry shop, which since the ’30s had been creating custom furniture for a demanding clientele. Franca Mollura was a pioneer in her field: she introduced big international design brands like B&B, Cappellini, and Kartell to Sicily long before they were widely available elsewhere in Italy, and she promoted the development of young Sicilian designers. This is how, in the ‘90s, the company began its international expansion, introducing new living and furnishing concepts.
However, it was Franca’s son, Gianluca, who marked a turning point in the company’s history when he decided to change its name. “The store had always been called Franca Mollura,” recalls Gianluca Mollura, “until, in 2004, I decided to call it Mohd – an acronym for Mollura Home Design.” That name, back then, caused quite a stir in Sicily and turned out to be a strategic choice for the brand’s international expansion. In 2008, Mohd launched its own website, entering the e-commerce market in 2011. Today, Mohd is a renowned interior design company recognized for its meticulous selection of furniture, lighting, accessories, and decoration ideas.
“We reflect the market trend. We came from an extraordinary year, 2022, but also this year, thanks to the fact we have delivered several projects we have been working on for a long time, we’ll close it with a plus,” comments Mollura. “We are fairly satisfied, considering that the market, thanks to the wars, thanks to the general situation, isn’t the same as 2022. We are conscious of this and pay careful attention to this aspect and to the strategies to implement.”
In a year characterized by high interest rates on loans, heavily exposed companies are suffering. In this context, Mohd, being a profitable company, is instead countering the trend: it doesn’t feel the crisis and is also growing on the digital side. “We are not just a pure e-commerce,” continues the Sicilian entrepreneur, “we are a company that also works a lot on showrooms – we just opened a second store in Catania, added to the two in Messina and the two in Milan – we are used to carrying out interior design and projects in a traditional manner but with a very contemporary and actual vision. So the approach is modern, but the skills are traditional.”
This ability to meet the needs of designers and final consumers is what the market recognizes in Mohd. This year – among the many milestones reached – it also marks the achievement of a new goal: the launch of Mohdern, a capsule collection of homewares, “a style exercise,” as Gianluca Mollura defines it. “Mohdern is a natural evolution of the Mohd project,” the entrepreneur concludes, “since I have always done this job and I turned 51 this year, it seemed like a nice thing to try something different.” This hints that we can still expect a lot from this Sicilian company.
