Valérie Pasmanian

A stakeholder and an attentive and passionate observer of the world of luxury and creation, Valérie Pasmanian has learned a lot from her encounters with remarkable and sometimes atypical personalities from the world of perfumery and cosmetics. But she has always kept an eclectic look, by increasing her areas of interest and projects. “My first years dedicated to pure prospective have taught me to immerse myself in all the trends, go find fractures where others only see fads”.

Alongside Vera Strubi and Marielle Belin, she appreciates the spirit of cooperation, the versatility and responsiveness of the small team of the Parfums Thierry Mugler. She works on both packaging projects, POS materials and press kits. “This is where I discovered that innovation was vital to a brand,” she explains, “but also that innovation meant taking risks”.

A spirit of innovation, the true leitmotif of a team that was then playing the role of a challenger, in the face of brands with much more significant resources. “Everyone remembers the launch of eco-source perfumes that have revolutionized the relationship with the brand and the bottle. We were proposing at the time an exceptional but expensive bottle and it was not reasonable to ask customers to just throw it away and buy a new one at each end of use. Hence the idea of proposing to refill it in the outlet. This was the idea of Vera Strübi, but no one had ever done that before. And the beginnings were difficult. Technically speaking, it took three generations of sources to make them fully reliable.” But still today, the brand appears as a pioneer in the field.

Full-service and standards

Art director and freelance designer for over ten years, Valérie Pasmanian is at the heart of creative developments in the world of beauty and luxury. Paradoxically, she says, the acceleration of launches was not followed by an equally marked acceleration of innovation. “What made most progress first was a shorter time-to-market, which made possible the development of the full service offer and which also helped stimulate it,” she explains. And creation did not escape this phenomenon. “The designer himself is increasingly in demand for turnkey projects. This changes the way of working. You must have a multitude of readily available projects. The encounter between a creator, a designer and a project has become increasingly rare, except for high end projects, who still favour singularity.

The phenomenon was also accentuated by the growing number of standards available on the market and the increase in their quality. “If you combine to that, the vast array and the increasing variety of customization possibilities, you finally manage to play your cards well and propose small series with a level of quality, which would have been impossible to achieve just a few years ago. I think this contributes a lot to the development of niche brands in perfumery.

Technological and social revolutions

For Valérie Pasmanian, the other major change in the job of a designer concerns technological changes. “At every level technological breakthroughs are considerable. Today, the materials available to manufacture a packaging have increased. Oil is no longer the unavoidable resource. We can even use flexible solar panels, we can imagine all kinds of packaging decorations for products with a new type of functional packaging.” But not everything can immediately be transposable, technology needs to mature, especially for a relatively conservative industry like the beauty industry. “Those who will manage to adapt these innovations to the luxury and beauty codes will keep their businesses on the leading edge.

Especially since all these changes occur in a society unsure about its future. “More than a crisis, it is a mutation towards other systems that we are experiencing. The population is aging, the purchasing power is declining in developed countries, and there are increasing inequalities.” Innovation and marketing must logically integrate these new parameters, “take into account the actual needs, of the sacrifices that consumers are ready to make, of choices they will make.

Although the situation is well known, Valérie Pasmanian considers that few conclusions have been drawn from it. “For example, with the advent of the internet, what explains that products sold online are available in the same packaging than those sold in stores? Is it necessary, is it legitimate, is it wise?

Relevant questions and answers which are far from simple. “Design is a bugbear. The product must be beautiful, but not too expensive, technically feasible and as clean as possible..." For her, “a synergy and cooperation between all stakeholders,” are the most effective ways to solve this equation.