Pierre Marand, President of Qualipac

Premium Beauty News - To use your own words, you qualify yourself as a "maker of beauty caskets"!

Pierre Marand - An expression that sums up quite well, actually, all the work and passion driving the Qualipac teams. And this is true every day for every launch. I can give you some recent examples...

With "Orchidée impériale, concentré de longévité", Guerlain wanted the bottle design to reflect the technicality, the ultra-concentration and efficiency of its new serum. The result is a unique packaging concept, a multi-component container, with a strong identity, whose aesthetics and ease of use would never suggest all the complexity of its mechanism. Because the whole bottle is made of nine plastic components we entirely produced and assembled. The spirit of elegance and luxury of the iconic brand is clearly visible in the choice of materials and finishes, in particular the central insert made of natural PCTA highlighting the deep blue colour of the bottle, surrounded at each end with a golden trim in galvanized ABS. And the shape of the bottle also calls for vertical gestures, the bottle "upside down" and a "twist off" gesture for the opening, for the application of serum and the fully secured closing of the box "Orchidée impériale, concentré de longévité."

Another example. After the feminine fragrance 212 VIP, the Puig Group has entrusted us with the production of its men’s version: "212 VIP MEN" by Carolina Herrera. For this project we designed all the aluminium and plastic components and we were in charge of the whole project management. Among the components we assembled there was metal, various plastics, glass, steel and magnets. The bottle was delivered ready to be conditioned on the chain.

Third example... with "Prada Candy," which has just been singled out as the "Best Packaging of the Year" at the Fifi’s Awards, where we designed a multi-component cap. At the centre of this ultra-sophisticated design, the galvanized gold logo is placed in a pink ring whose design is evocative of "Safiano leather". And the glass produced by Pochet du Courval makes of Prada Candy a fine example of development in synergy within the Group.

Premium Beauty News - A multi-technology offer that has a cost!

Pierre Marand - A cost first in terms of investments. This year, we are investing 20% more than we did in 2011, which had already been a consistent year in that area. Investments that are synonymous with an increase in capacity, a continuous optimization in production and therefore a reduction in costs. In concrete terms, we started earlier this year vacuum metallisation activities in Brazil, added new automated assembly lines and increased by 25% the production area of our Shanghai plant in China.

Premium Beauty News - Colour cosmetics also seems to be an increasingly important axis?

Pierre Marand - Correct! Our renewed presence at the MakeUp in Paris show in June and then to the second edition of the New York counterpart in September reflects our desire to assist our customers in this segment by making every effort to be and remain the reference for them in terms of packaging development. This is an axis that we want to develop through the strengthening among others, of our position in the area of make-up cases but also by developing ourselves in all products related to make-up for the lips. With our industrial tools running in Brazil, France and China, we are able to offer both mass market and very upscale products. This sector requires both a lot of know-how and technology, while also being subject to very tight price ranges and short deadlines. A every day challenge.

Premium Beauty News - Did you take part to many launches this year?

Pierre Marand - Yes, and this is probably the result of the trust that has developed between our customers and our teams. Among major launches that took place earlier this year we can name for perfumes, Truth of Dare (a very technical cap, designed with no visible parting line, whose relief consists of 29 hemispheres), Allure Homme Sport Eau Extrême by Chanel, Duo now Azzaro EDT; and for make-up, the compacts and the 3-in-1 foundation in the CK One Colors line by Calvin Klein and the compacts in the Wong Kar-Wai line for Shu Uemura.