The King Midas of e-commerce: how to be a successful digital entrepreneur
At the home of Carmen Busquets, the Venezuelan entrepreneur who has financed and bet on the most important media and fashion platforms. Here she opens the doors of her penthouse in Key Biscayne, Miami.
by Jill Krasny
Where would a successful entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist, who loves all-white interiors, large open spaces and postcard-worthy sunsets over the beach, buy her corner of paradise? Among insiders, a popular choice is certainly Key Biscayne in Florida, the exclusive island south of Miami Beach. And it is here that Carmen Busquets, the Midas king of fashion e-commerce, bought a large beachfront penthouse - right where the Sonesta Beach Resort used to be - and furnished it with lots of contemporary art and custom-made designer pieces.
"Oh my God, what on earth happened here?" she recalls saying, when she saw that the resort, where she had stayed years before, had been demolished. Today, at sixty, wearing a red Vita Kin dress, Gabriela Hearst sandals and Guerlain's L'Heure Bleue perfume, she explains that the shock did not deter her; on the contrary, she felt deeply drawn to the place that ten years later would become her home. "I knew I would like to live where Sonesta once stood. At the time, when she learned that the site was earmarked for the construction of a 142-home condominium, she did some research on the reputation of the Argentine developer, Consultatio, and immediately declared her intention to buy. Carmen Busquets, born in Venezuela, has a good eye for investments. The list of fashion and media platforms she has financed includes The Business of Fashion, Moda Operandi, Farfetch and Lyst. In 2000 he bought an initial 14 per cent stake in Net-A-Porter for £250,000: when the company was sold in 2015, it was valued at around £950m. He then founded - and later closed - CoutureLab, an e-commerce platform dedicated to artisans, which over time has evolved into an investment tool to support luxury startups. Its latest business has to do with Matches: in December, it was announced that the London-based platform, which went into receivership in 2024, would be relaunched by Hulcan, a luxury group recently founded by Mario Maher and Joe Wilkinson, who already headed Mile, the members-only shopping app. Both considered it a great fortune to receive Busquets' support: 'She is a clear-eyed connoisseur of the industry dynamics, with a rare ability to see into brands, customers and business,' explains Wilkinson. For his part, Busquets believes that the two are 'building a business just the way I did it', he says referring to his first venture, Cabus, a very profitable fashion boutique in Caracas.
Busquets' connection to Miami is strong: her mother's Cuban family emigrated there after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and she frequented the city often as a girl. Her father, a Catalan, was a metal engineer, her mother a sociologist and anthropologist 'with an infinite curiosity', she recalls. Their shopping together at the couturiers generated in Carmen a lifelong interest in clothes, and turned fashion into her main means of expression, considering also her communication difficulties: at the age of 22, she discovered she was partially deaf and later on that she was dyslexic, two factors, however, that never discouraged her professionally. Returning to her home, she opens the doors to the penthouse that has become her property since the building's construction was completed in 2014. When the keys were handed over, she recalls, she was horrified by the floor plan: 'I hated it, the reason I bought it was so I could see the sunrise and sunset. It took two years to knock down the walls: originally there were eight bedrooms, now there are five. The ceilings have been raised by 10 centimetres, the dining room has disappeared, the kitchen, which was partly closed, is now all open. Only one bathroom and the load-bearing walls have survived. "I don't have children," he says, striding towards the long corridor leading to the sleeping area. "Only when there are children is there a need to close the doors to the rooms."
It is a strangely cloudy day in Miami, but the horizon over the ocean is still clearly visible from the terrace. Silence reigns on the 13th floor. Two large digital images by Shanghai-based art collective Liu Dao greet guests as they arrive at the flat. Next to them, a computer animation by American artist Jennifer Steinkamp with fluttering butterflies. Colour is a theme throughout his art collection. In the living area, an installation of aluminium flowers in fluorescent hues by Florida artist Soraya Abu Naba'a stands out. Furniture everywhere stands out for its versatility: 'Everything has to be flexible,' Busquets points out. The polished stainless steel coffee tables, by Israeli designer Arik Levy, combine to form a larger table or can also serve as an ottoman; the marble-topped kitchen islands move across the wooden floor, thanks to castors, and become a base for cheese and wine boards or simple sushi bars. Last but not least, Busquets also likes to organise sleepovers with friends. The reclining cushions of Paulin Paulin's Dune sofa fulfilled this need: in the original model, they could be moved here and there when guests arrived. At some point, however, the lady of the house, who is an avid reader, had a logistical problem: she no longer knew where to put her books. Benjamin Paulin, the designer's son, solved the problem with a custom-made bookcase discreetly placed under the cushions, with one limitation: it locks the seats in place. Another constant in the house is the attention to craftsmanship: one example above all, the hemp rope stools by Christian Astuguevieille. A Frenchman, artistic director of fashion houses and perfume brands such as Hermès and Comme des Garçons Parfums, as well as a creator of sculptural furniture, he was one of the many artists to whom Busquets had remained loyal since her CoutureLab days. She likes to arrange and rearrange objects according to the mood of the moment. Today, having become the owner of two other houses in Verbier and Paris, she says she would be willing to sell the Miami penthouse if she found the right buyer: 'It's so emotionally involved, though, that it would take someone with.... lots of money!' she points out.
Last year, she inaugurated the Carmen Busquets Foundation, a philanthropic association to support education and creativity, in memory of her mother. She also presented the Carmen Busquets Couture Prize at the Latin American Fashion Awards, to celebrate creators who are able to fuse traditional craftsmanship with innovation, slow fashion principles, sustainability and cultural value.
