For 26 years now, the Les Places d’Or Exhibition has been bringing together the best in packaging and celebrating know-how which is as discreet as it is indispensable. As an essential ingredient in every luxury product, packaging serves as a flavour enhancer, without actually appearing on the menu. Like a film score, it accompanies, draws attention and reveals. By highlighting the contents, it makes those contents shine.

I am particularly honoured to preside over this 2020 edition, which is taking place at such an unusual time, both in terms of health constraints and the lack of economic visibility. We are facing a huge challenge, but I am convinced that we will be able to show resilience thanks to the spirit of innovation ingrained in the very DNA of packaging.

I am all the more convinced of this because I know this sector particularly well. As a fresh engineering graduate, I launched my professional career by creating a company specializing in packaging for the cosmetics industry.

Today, the up-and-coming generation is presenting us with a new dilemma, a creative challenge of sorts: How are we to showcase a luxury product while avoiding the pitfalls of over-packaging, which is now rightly shunned? The time has come for us to develop new concepts and use non-polluting materials.

There is no shortage of public and private initiatives in this area. Thus, L’OCCITANE en Provence was one of 400 companies to sign the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. Spearheaded by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, it sets the goal of abandoning problematic plastic packaging and increasing the use of recycled plastics fivefold by 2025.

Determined to play an important role in these developments, the L’OCCITANE Group is committed to ensuring that all its bottles are made from 100% recycled plastic by 2025.

Sustainable development is no longer optional—it needs to play an integral role from the earliest stages of our product design processes. Given the situation, Les Places d’Or is more relevant than ever, for it is here that innovations can be shared, generated and passed along.

About the L’OCCITANE Group

The L’OCCITANE Group is an international group that manufactures and retails beauty and well-being products that are rich in natural and organic ingredients. A global leader in the premium beauty market, the Group has more than 3,400 retail outlets, including 1,572 owned stores, and is present in 90 countries. Through its six brands – L’OCCITANE en Provence, Melvita, Erborian, L’OCCITANE au Brésil, LimeLife and ELEMIS – the Group offers new and extraordinary beauty experiences, using high-quality products that respect nature, the environment and the people in it.