Chad Lavigne
Parfums Givenchy
Chad Lavigne does more than create beautiful fragrance packaging. As vice president of creative services for Parfums Givenchy Inc. in the United States, Lavigne helps top fashion designers turn their creative visions into packaging realities. "Every project is a reinvention," says Lavigne, "and I want to put packaging out there that people will take notice of."
The challenges and pleasures of his job, Lavigne says, "are interpreting the ideas of two of the most talented fashion designers today: Michael Kors and Marc Jacobs."
For the Givenchy brands, Lavigne designs the promotional and point-of-sale items that communicate the worldwide Givenchy image to the American market. For the company's American designer fragrances, he works closely with the designers to conceptualize and create all primary and secondary packaging and execution programs. Currently, he's completing work with Marc Jacobs, helping the designer put together his first women's fragrance. He is also just beginning his second collaboration with Michael Kors, a fragrance for the designer's hit bridge fashion line, KORS.
"So far the most challenging and rewarding [project]," says Lavigne, "has been MICHAEL, which has pushed us in terms of reinventing materials, shapes, packagingÑeverything." The combination of suede and soft-touch resins with clear Surlyn and silver created the perfect package for the Michael Kors customer. "Overall, the result has been innovation in packaging for the industry," says Lavigne. The shoulders of the bottle and the bottle itself are pressed in two different molds, then fused together, an intricate process that makes each bottle unique.
Lavigne's other design credits, earned during his 12-year career, include the development of Ralph Lauren's Romance and of the entire Polo Sport franchise in his former role as assistant vice president of creative services at Cosmair (now L'Oreal USA Inc). "When developing the Polo Sport line, there still had to be a clear message of prestige coming across with the packaging and the graphics, despite the brand's more athletic theme. Ralph Lauren always stands for luxury, and this was the key to separating the Polo Sport franchise from the rest of the Ôsport' fragrance competition."
Today, Lavigne is grateful for the opportunities Parfums Givenchy Inc.'s parent company, Mo‘t Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), gives him to design innovative packaging. "Creating is a priority at LVMH, and that's what drew me to the company," he says. "In the last year, I've worked on four designer brands for them. They really want to break new ground. I love that."