Luxe Pack Monaco drew a record number of attendees.

A Package Beyond Par

Luxe Pack Monaco celebrates 20 years with record crowds and timely solutions.

By Jamie Matusow

Metaphorically speaking, the Grimaldi Forum, the steel-and-glass engineering miracle built on land reclaimed from the Mediterranean Sea, serves as the fitting secondary package for the world’s ultimate luxury goods packaging exhibition, Luxe Pack Monaco. The gleaming multifaceted structure catches your eye immediately upon approach and hints at the extravagance of the products contained within. And in keeping with one of the predominant themes of this year’s event (October 23-26), this outer package is even green: Five hundred cubic meters of water are pumped out of the Forum per hour, generating the energy necessary to heat and cool it, but without damaging the surrounding sea life in any way. 

Setting Standards for 20 Years

A record 6,121 attendees (up 9.5% from 2006) entered the Grimaldi Forum as Luxe Pack Monaco marked its 20th anniversary as the pacesetter for the luxury packaging market. Nathalie Grosdidier, general commissioner of the show—who has participated in the last 13 of the 20 annual events—says Luxe Pack began with 40 exhibitors “who had found a niche exhibition drawing the most innovative, high-end packaging suppliers from around the world.” From the start, Luxe Pack was dedicated to all luxury markets, designed for what Grosdidier calls “cross-fertilization” so that each sector could find inspiration and creativity in the others. Although the majority of exhibitors at this year’s show specialized in beauty and personal care packaging, others represented gourmet foods, wines and spirits and jewelry.

Jamie Matusow and Mark Rosen on the show floor.

This year, 330 companies, including more than 40 new participants, set up high-style booths to appropriately showcase their wares. Ten of the original 40 have exhibited all 20 years: Alcan Packaging Beauty, Doro, Ets Clas, Ileos, Kurz France, Lisi Cosmetics, Qualipac, RPC Beaute, Verreries Brosse SAS and VPI.

Revealing Trends to Come

For the second year, Luxe Pack included the Market Trends Observer, the findings of industry experts who have analyzed the products shown by Luxe Pack exhibitors. Three trends noted were:

• Durability: With everyone thinking green, there’s an emphasis on sustainability; luxury packaging is substantial and heavy to foster a longer life.

• Enigma: Packaging seems a bit playful, encouraging consumers to pick it up and take it home. It often provides a little mystery, or perhaps uses metal or soft-touch elements.
 
• Precision: Focus is on the application; sophistication is in the details.

Trend-spotting with Marc Rosen

These three trends emerged often as I toured the show floor with internationally renowned packaging designer Marc Rosen. We started with the vast array of bottles. Rosen pointed out the noticeable emphasis on glass and Lucite, saying that the consumer often equates weight with quality. With so many fragrances launching, glass houses from Italy, France and Germany were highlighting the many finishing and decorative techniques they’d developed.

SGD’s booth was a stand out.

“Due to the tremendous use of flankers, decorators have had to become much more sophisticated,” Rosen said, adding that one shape can be decorated in many ways to launch flankers while still tying the line together. This was particularly evidenced at SGD, where walls of curved showcases exhibited many different flanker evolutions as well as decorative glass techniques such as lacquering and screen printing with hologram inks.
   
Pivaudran’s decorative techniques include laser engraving to carve out designs on some of the bottles, similar to how a cameo is created. “This is very high-end and not inexpensive,” commented Rosen, “but gorgeous.”
   
At Bormioli Luigi, Rosen admired the new emerald green flacon created for Britney Spears, and said it was the most innovative of her bottles. He complimented the Italian company on the way it had played with the glass, saying that it was very difficult to create the flat shoulder and sharp edges while maintaining the thickness of the glass so it looks the same at all angles.
   
As Rosen and I entered Rexam’s booth, it was their color cosmetics line that initially caught our eye. Among many new introductions was a custom design for Givenchy: a modern version of an antique, in which you use a ribbon to pull the lipstick out of its tube. Another lipstick, this one for Chanel, is made of metal so it can be recycled. Just press down on the top and the bullet pops out. A third lipstick launch is Rexam’s new stock lipstick, Visible Lips, for customers who want their consumers to see the shade of the formula at a glance. Rexam’s latest innovation in pressed powder formulas, which its client Maybelline calls a “Powder Revolution,” is housed in a complex case that opens both on the side and vertically for convenience and easy application.
   

Mead WestVaco’s Clikit pump.

The Fendi Palazzo fragrance bottle shown by Pochet featured complex decorations on the back and the front. The platinum silk screening on the back was precise and refined, and the silk-screened black square on the front was a technical coup in how very close to the edge it had been applied.

Bottles to Pumps to Tubes

The vast collection of bottles at Luxe Pack was indeed exquisite, but those at Swarovski were dazzling thanks to a new application that allows crystal motifs normally used for textiles to be automatically transferred and permanently adhered to glass.
   
The Clikit pump, one of the innovations at MeadWestvaco Calmar, can be clicked on to a bottle rather than crimped on, making it speedier on the production line. Also exhibited were the invisible NoC dip tube (which disappears when immersed in the fragrance) and the yet-to-be-released-in-the-U.S. Podle, a portable pocket sprayer with a two-click locking system to prevent leakage of personal care items while in your purse.
   

Nathalie Grosdidier, general commissioner of Luxe Pack.

There was a lot to see at Alcan Packaging Beauty as well, with product introductions in areas from mascaras to tubes. Notch 2, Alcan’s new mascara entry, features two pre-twisted wires twisted together, making it possible to get more length, curl and separation. Dr. Tube is a laminate tube with a cannula applicator; three points of injection make the tip smoother for precise applications. Slender, according to Alcan, is the lightest flip-top cap in the world. It uses 50% less material than other caps, so it’s eco-friendly, comes in matte and gloss finishes and can be sealed for protection.

Conference Program

Luxe Pack Monaco also included a well-attended conference program. According to Grosdidier, the topics were chosen “to provide attendees with inspiration and a key to new luxury codes in dealing with luxury issues.”
   
With sustainability an overriding topic on the show floor, Rosen moderated a standing room only roundtable called “Eco-Echo: The Advent of Sustainable Luxury.” Sustainability was a trend in the 60s; now it’s back in a big way. Luxury goods have always relied on layers of packaging. Are luxury and eco-friendly at odds? Can they be compatible?
   

Rexam’s case for Givenchy.

Using the cross-fertilization approach that Grosdidier mentioned, Rosen brought together innovators in various market sectors to discuss how they had created brands that satisfy consumers’ desire for luxury within the parameters of an ever-growing eco world. From Linda Loudermilk, a couture-trained fashion designer whose eco-conscious fabrics include soy, bamboo and seaweed-based materials, to Jane Dirr and Rohan Widdison of Australian natural cosmetics company NVEY,  to Brenda Brock who launched Farmaesthetics from a farmstand in Rhode Island, these entrepreneurs all spoke of how they had followed their eco-passions and succeeded in creating top-of-the-line luxury brands. (At one point, Loudermilk spoke of a particularly gorgeous outfit she’d designed for Jane Fonda, with the top made of milk and the pants made of hemp. Fonda wore it on a talk show and boasted: “You can drink my top and smoke my bottom!”)
   
Panelist Rochelle Bloom, president of The Fragrance Foundation, spoke for the luxury market in general, noting that sustainable luxury is mainstream today—that consumers are willing to trade up to pay for an ethical product. She urged all attendees to look at their companies, see what they have that is sustainable and take some responsibility for making things a little greener. “I encourage you,” she urged the crowd, “to produce a premium eco product and dedicate yourself to marketing it. Start with something small—it will make you and your company happy and proud.”
   
All agreed that it would probably take from 10-20 years before everyone chooses organics over synthetics, but that both consumer demand and global regulations are turning eco from what once was a trend into the future of the industry.
   
Afterward, I asked Rosen about the conviction of his speakers and the enthusiasm of the crowd. “I think that my panel was so well received,” he said, “because our world has finally realized that sustainability is here to stay and it’s actually fashionable to support it.”