What’s Next?

Starting from a base as a designer and manufacturer, this entrepreneur is continuing to reach for new goals.

By Janet Herlihy Editor

Marc Rosen is at it again.

Not content to rest on his laurels, Rosen, founder of Marc Rosen Associates and Prêt-a-Porter, has started a new business, ACCESSmr, a uniquely-conceived access-marketing firm that offers a combination of services that he has long been providing to the beauty business on a casual basis.

ACCESSmr is being received with enthusiasm. “In today’s time deficient world, achieving success is all about access. Marc Rosen’s new business venture ACCESSmr has come at a perfect time,” said Robin Burns, president and chief executive, Intimate Beauty Corporation and Victoria’s Secret Beauty. “His experience and connections within the industry are invaluable. His background in design, business, manufacturing, marketing and public relations are a unique combination that can help companies achieve the acceptance and visibility essential to making it big,” Burns concluded.

ACCESSmr will pair a new idea with the right business partner, develop a business plan, open doors to industry decision makers, provide U.S. market information to overseas companies, propose licensing partnerships, and much more, according to Rosen.

Putting together the skills and connections that ACCESSmr is offering has taken more than 25 years. Rosen’s career began as a packaging designer, first on staff at Revlon and then at Elizabeth Arden. When he departed Arden in 1989 after more than a decade of service, Rosen was senior vice president–corporate design and communications. While there, he had added skills in public relations and marketing to his design expertise.

Marc Rosen Associates was begun in 1989 with Elizabeth Arden as the first client. “My greatest challenge was to establish my own identity that was separate from the companies I’d worked for,” said Rosen.
The firm’s success can be measured by its client roster, made up of major names from prestige to mass including: Estée Lauder, Ellen Tracy, Perry Ellis, Karl Lagerfeld, Nina Ricci, Fendi, Joan Rivers, Guess and Dana, as well as a string of six FiFi Awards.

“What differentiated me,” Rosen said, “was my corporate experience as part of a marketing team, which taught me that packaging is a component of the marketing mix and how each part contributes to the whole.”

As Marc Rosen Associates grew, Rosen began to branch out. He built a reputation as an articulate trend-spotter through a column he writes for Beauty Fashion magazine. He became a professor for his alma mater, Pratt Institute Graduate School, teaching a course on designing fragrance packaging, called Package Design Workshop.

In 1989, Pratt presented him with its Excellence in Design award and established a scholarship in his name for young designers. The scholarship is supported by a gala fundraiser held annually at New York’s University Club. It is one of many organizations, including The March of Dimes, The American Cancer Society, The Fragrance Foundation and The Fashion Institute of Technology, to which Rosen contributes his time and talent.

With an ever-expanding network of customers, acquaintances and experiences, Rosen has been approached by clients to handle the facets of the entire launch–packaging, product development, public relations and point-of-sale. “About two-thirds of my clients ask me to handle the entire project,” he said.
In 1995, Rosen answered client requests by creating Prêt-a-Porter Custom Standards, a company which designs and manufactures a line of mix-and-match stock components (bottles, collars and caps) for fragrance products.

Rosen noted, “At that time, even if you could find a good-looking stock bottle, it was almost impossible to find a cap for it. We incorporated many custom features in our designs such as heavy glass, sharp corners and flat shoulders. Then we designed caps and collars that can be interchanged between the bottles working with partners like Saint Gobain Dejonqueres, Augros, Eyelematic and Niob.”

The components come in any color of the rainbow. It caught on at first with niche brand companies but has now moved on to larger ones as well. According to Rosen, Avon is currently doing a program using Prêt-a-Porter components.

In the Prêt-a-Porter business, Rosen again found himself providing added services as clients asked his advice on a wide range of topics.

About six months ago, Rosen explained, “I realized that I had clients coming to me, not for design services and not for stock components, but to facilitate meetings and to advise on and provide access to the decision makers in the industry. ACCESSmr was born out of those requests.”

The new venture is taking off. At Luxe Pack 2001 in October, six ACCESSmr press kits were given to potential European clients, according to Rosen, and each recipient has since contacted the company with projects.

Marc Rosen Associates and Prêt-a-Porter are as active as ever and will continue to be important operations, according to their founder. The design firm is currently creating bottles for fragrances for sisters Paris and Nicky Hilton, who will market the products themselves. Another creation, a Joan Rivers fragrance bottle, was recently launched. This past fall, Prêt-a-Porter entered into a relationship with Saint-Gobain Desjonqueres, its glass bottle manufacturer, in which SGD will market Prêt-a-Porter products through its international sales force.

With the start of ACCESSmr, “I feel like I have completed the circle,” said Rosen. “The combination of these three businesses seems to incorporate the sum total of my experience.”