Léa Vignal-Kenedi
Consider Frenchwoman Léa Vignal-Kenedi as one of its foremost powerbrokers. She started her career in the Nineties with Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, and it’s the place she learned a few of her basic guiding ideas. “I joined the fragrance division of YSL in 1997. At the time, Yves Saint Laurent was alive and really concerned about your complete artistic course. He was actually one of the most inventive stylists, taking inspiration from the likes of Van Gogh and other nice painters. It’s there that I learned to learn how to join an inventive aspect with present tradition, after which I translated that basically right into a product,” says Vignal-Kenedi.
It’s an expertise that has proved invaluable in her current function as the managing director for fragrances at Cartier Parfums, where she works as the enterprise brain behind the French firm’s world fragrance division. She oversees capabilities together with advertising and marketing, operational methods, and industrial activations for all its fragrances.
At Cartier, Vignal-Kenedi works alongside the legendary nostril of the model, Mathilde Laurent. “We’re the only jewelry home to have an in-house perfumer. “I work intently with Mathilde and an artistic workforce inside our accent design studio,” explains Vignal-Kenedi.
She notes that your complete course from concept to bottle-on-the-gilded shelf takes a number of years. At Cartier, a model that traces its roots back to the 1800s and a perfume division whose historical past goes back to the Eighties, the Maison doesn’t reinvent the wheel every time it debuts a perfume—one other trait she learned from Yves Saint Laurent. When he (YSL) thought of a brand new venture, he would first go through the model’s archives – and that’s precisely what we do at Cartier too.” At present, after I begin the method of a brand new perfume with my workforce, we begin with the historical past of the model and take a look at the archives of the Maison.
She cites the instance of La Panthère de Cartier, one of its best-selling collections. “After we determined to relaunch La Panthère—it beforehand existed in our portfolio—we actually needed to proceed to inform its story, however, to make the product related to the current time. We would have liked to make the shopper uncover what the animal notes are in perfumery and what the idea of femininity is at Cartier. And so Mathilde labored across the idea of felinity—feline and floral. That’s how the thought of it happened. She explains that “It got here to market in 2014.” However, the process of getting it out of the door, she explains, took 4 years. The challenges have been on two fronts. Mathilde, who was engaged in the anomeric aspect of the perfume, was constrained by the fact that current laws prohibited her from utilizing certain pure components that had been allowed beforehand, and so she needed to develop artificial alternate options. However, Vignal-Kenedi’s function needed to be executed by a producer who may execute the bottle design, which is sculpted from within. The duo persevered, and Vignal-Kenedi is assured that La Panthère will become a permanent legacy perfume for the model.
Revisiting its archive is one thing that Cartier did to good impact earlier this year too, with one other in-style males’ perfume referred to as Déclaration. The model went back to its authentic Déclaration from 1998 to debut the Déclaration Haute Fraicheur earlier this year, which is a variation on the basic.
When figuring out the messaging for worldwide markets, Vignal-Kenedi leads the way and says that China and the US are the markets where perfume might be on the rise. “The European area continues to be one of the greatest [fragrance] markets, but China is de facto catching up.” ” We’ve been anticipating China to turn into a key participant for years.” It’s not a shock that it’s taking place now. However, the price at which it’s taking place is shocking, particularly throughout the final two years. “China is anticipated to turn into both the largest and the second-biggest perfume market after the US by 2025,” forecasts Vignal-Kenedi.
As she notes, the tradition and motivations for getting fragrances are starkly different within the US and China, and one of her foremost duties is to tap into the zeitgeist in every one of these two markets. “The perfume tradition in the US comes from the likes of Bathtub & Bodyworks, and so it’s very clear, pure, and recent.” In China, purchasers are on the lookout for extra subtle and signature fragrances, singularity, and the facility of proudly owning a chunk of Maison Cartier.
Aside from the US and China, the market that Vignal-Kenedi is aware of has super potential is the Middle East. “Firstly of my profession, I used to be in charge of the Center East area for Shiseido, and Jean Paul Gaultier. “What strikes me about this area is the flexibility of our companions right here to hear, be taught, and implement in a short time all of the experience and the information we give them as regards to the execution of the plans,” says Vignal-Kenedi. She says Cartier fragrances have had appreciable success in their regional markets, together with the UAE and Kuwait, although Cartier’s push in Saudi Arabia is poised to develop quickly.
“We’re going to have a really profitable year in Saudi. We’ll expand our community and have pop-up perfume shops [in Saudi] too. “Subsequent yr, we’re planning to present the unidentified scented object experiential idea for Saudi too,” she says. A couple of ideas that include a floating cloud of fragrance were seen in a setup within the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2017 and within the Louvre Abu Dhabi in 2019, months earlier than the pandemic struck. Cartier’s concentration on the area additionally implies that particular limited-edition variations of its iconic perfumes like La Panthère have been created particularly for the Center East.
Learn: Voices from the highest: Sophie Doireau, CEO, Middle East, India, and Africa, Cartier
Among the many key challenges cropping up for Vignal-Kenedi and her workforce is tackling the problem of sustainability, by using components in addition to the packaging itself. “With the Rivieres assortment, we achieved a formulation with plant-based components containing no synthetic colors. We needed to exhibit its potential to create stunning initiatives while being accountable. In about 18–20 months, 100 percent of the pillar traces we make may even be utterly refillable and reusable. The problem right here is to make sure the standard of the bottle is maintained so that you can reuse it as long as you need to. ”
One of her foremost battles is at the moment resisting the noise throughout the business that’s pushing for the unique use of pure components in perfumes – one thing that she’s clear about is an impractical goal. “Artificial molecules in perfumes will always exist.” We must be true to what perfumery is… and perfumery is chemistry. Chemistry is about making the very best with a mixture of supplies that might be artificial addition to pure. The target is de facto to search out the appropriate stability between the 2,” she explains.
Additionally, trying past fragrances themselves and into product diversification methods—an excellent instance may be discovered in the Les Nécessaires à Parfum Cartier instances that were launched in May last year and designed to suit 9 Cartier fragrances, together with La Panthère, Déclaration, Pasha Version Noire, Oud & Santal, and Pur Magnolia, amongst others. With the accent, as with the thought of reusable bottles too, Cartier is promoting not just a perfume that dissipates over a day, but a tangible piece of the Maison itself.
