ALEXANDER GALLE

Introduction

2011-05-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

Alexander Gallé is Partner and Creative Director at GALLE - a design and advertising studio focused on luxury, entertainment and fashion brands - and one of Europe's leading art directors in the luxury brands online sector. Gallé's portfolio includes websites, online ads and e-commerce solutions for YSL, Asprey, Garrard, Dior Beauty, Marchesa, Corum Timepieces, Boucheron, Jimmy Choo, MCM, Twentieth Century Fox, Buena Vista International, Miramax, Metropolitan Hotel, Marbella Club, Hotel Casadelmar, Lebua Hotels and Resorts and many leading hotels around the world. Gallé led the re-branding strategy for Corum Timepieces in 2006 and art directed their Unlock and Conquer ad campaigns in 2007. Later in that year, Gallé's studio also launched Artipolis, the social network for art and design professionals. Gallé combines 15 years of design and art direction with in-depth knowledge of the commercial and strategic aspects of the internet and Web 2.0.

Interview with Alexander Gallé

www.galle.com

Bitcoin: a designer's point of view

2011-05-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

"Bitcoin: a designer's point of view" was first published in the May 2011 edition of Luxury Briefing, the luxury industry's trade magazine.

BITCOIN - A designer's point of view
by Alexander Gallé

Every now and then an idea comes online that you just know has all the potential to create a huge dent into the fabric of the universe.

Sometimes, the idea and its execution are so perfect that they propel themselves directly into the world, straight to the top. Such is the case of HTML itself, for example, or of hugely successful companies like Google and Facebook, which define new steps in how we interact with information and with each other.

Other times, the idea is there, but its initial form has a weak spot which later gets perfected by like-minded players coming further down the line. Napster was such an idea: it had some weak spots (which led to its downfall), but completely revolutionised the music industry by introducing peer-to-peer filesharing to its consumers, opening up the way for Gnutella, for example, which was already quite popular while the judges were still trying to figure out what Napster's weak spot actually was.

Bitcoin is such a big idea. The only thing we don't know yet, at this point, is whether it is big in its current execution, or whether it just sets the paradigm for other players to play within.

To give you an idea of just how big it is, I'll need to explain a little bit about monetary economics. Please note, no ideological point is made here, just an observation of how a system will exist simply because each individual user within it will see personal benefit in using it.

Now... The key difference between Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek - two free market economists - is that Friedman advocated that, in order to ensure the free market's stability and continuity, government should focus its efforts on the policy of dictating the quantity of money supplied to the market, and its price (i.e. the interest rate set by a central bank).

Hayek, on the other hand, argued that it is illogical to advocate the benefits of the free market but then advocate that the one product everyone sells and buys when they're buying and selling their own goods - i.e. money - should have its own supply and price dictated by a centralised bureau. This, in Hayek's view, was akin to saying that, just because everyone needs food to work, you can have a free market in labour but that you should "stabilise" it by controlling, Soviet politburo-style, the supply of food workers need to perform their labour. Central control of food led to huge famines in the Soviet Union, and central control of money leads to the economic woes we experience in the West. If money is a product like any other, it too should have its supply and prices dictated by the free market.

In other words, Hayek advocated the superiority of a money separated from sovereignty. He had a point: monetary policy is always being advocated to satisfy some other economic goal, rather than simply to ensure that the money itself be as good a product as possible. If money is a product like everything else, its evolution should follow the same evolution dictated by users' feedback and competitors' innovations, just like any other product. If a particular type of money is, as a product, superior to its competitors, it'll be in consumers interest to prefer it over others, until something better comes along. Such superiority can not be achieved if the quality of the product is always compromised by political goals, or by economics goals other than the quality of the product itself.

Enter Bitcoin, the world's first peer-to-peer online currency, which is only a couple of months old. Online currencies have been attempted before, of course: when Paypal started out, the goal was actually to create a private online currency people could use just to buy things online. It's only when site users started enquiring about this other thing - the online payment processing tool Paypal were promising would come soon on their website - that Peter Thiel and his partners decided to put their online currency ideas on the backburner and focus on this opportunity instead.

But nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come, and ten years later it is very clear that Paypal would have never been been as good an online currency as Bitcoin. This, for the simple reason that Bitcoin is decentralised: it's peer-to-peer. Transactions in Bitcoins are done entirely between buyers and sellers, just like cash, not relying on any third party to process the payment. In that sense, it's the closest thing to cash you can have in an online environment. Unlike cash, however, there isn't even a "central bank": the total quantity of Bitcoins is dictated by an algorithm that has nothing to do with a particular country's need to boost exports, support its mortgage-paying voters, or other factors that are nothing to do with the money's quality itself.

There was a time, centuries ago, when all money was peer-to-peer, a time when money's quality as a product wasn't dictated by anything other than the vast number of individual users preferring one type of medium of exchange and store of value over another: gold. Bitcoins are more akin to gold than anything else. The idea that the adoption of Bitcoins would lead to some kind of new gold standard is, however, entirely mistaken: a gold standard is about dictating and maintaining a fixed price between gold and one's currency (whichever one you think of as the numeraire), when the whole point of Bitcoins is that their price will simply be dictated by demand and supply, along with any other competing currencies. As for Bitcoin's security: the encryption systems used are the SHA-256 and ECDSA-256 algorithms, used by the majority of mainstream banks, which would require the invention of quantum computers to be unlocked within a human lifetime - at which point, of course, Bitcoin (or another company) could simply create a quantum encrypted currency.

What this means is that we now have a secure medium of exchange which is designed to be independent of economic motives other than its own quality (which can itself be improved like any software in v.2.0, v.3.0, etc.). It has the same potential to act as an international reference point as precious metals, but is entirely non-physical and usable in online trade. It is designed to be as easy to transfer accross the planet as sending an email, and without any mark-ups to distort its spot price.

Truly a design and technology breakthrough, then, a product in a class of its own. Like any design, however, the only really important measure is how people interact with it. Let's see how it catches on...

Visit www.bitcoin.org

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Cercle des Grandes Maisons Corses: brand identity and website

2011-02-23T10:03:00.000-08:00

Gallé Studio design brand identity for the Cercle des Grandes Maisons Corses, the Corsican hotel and travel services association. The Gallé studio in London presented yesterday the graphic communication (visual identity, graphic charts and website) for the Cercle des Grandes Maisons Corses. The association's marque is a deer on a red background representing the sun. The concept is entitled "U Cervu Rossu" - the red deer itself being a species unique to the island of Corsica which, in the 80s, was in danger of becoming extinct but has since experienced something of a rebirth thanks to the creation of protected national parks on the island.

Le studio Gallé à Londres a présenté hier la communication (identité visuelle, charte graphique et site web) pour le Cercle des Grandes Maisons Corses. La marque du Cercle est un cerf, sur un fond rouge représentant le soleil. Le concept graphique est intitulé "U Cervu Rossu" - le cerf rouge même étant une espèce unique à la Corse qui, durant les années 80, était en voie de disparition mais qui, suite à la création de parcs naturels protégés, a proliféré depuis.

Visit www.lesgrandesmaisonscorses.com
Visit www.galle.com

Flow and the City

2010-12-08T17:40:00.000-08:00

Flow and the City was first published as an essay in Luxury Briefing, in November 2010.

Flow and the City

by Alexander Gallé

The concept of Flow has interested quite a few interactive designers since the publication, in the mid-90s, of "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This article aims to increase awareness of Flow to designers and design-thinkers in other fields, not only in the luxury sector, but in transport design, urban design and architecture.

Csikszentmihalyi's book discusses the idea of human happiness as a state of mind, called Flow, wherein a person is so fully engaged in the interaction with, say, a work project or the study of a new subject, in the activity for its own sake, that s/he enters a state of low self-centeredness and complete absorption with the activity's own intrinsic purpose.

You would, for example, think of Flow as the condition Michelangelo was in when he painted the Sixtine chapel: he spent days on end in a state of heightened concentration, entirely dedicated to the work in and of itself, pausing only briefly to eat or drink, sleeping only out of physical exhaustion and waking up refreshed enough to simply continue where he left off and immerse himself in the task.

Aside from Csikszentmihalyi's analogies in the arts world, you could think of their equivalent in the sports world, e.g. Ayrton Senna describing a "heightened" state of mind during his races. You could think of Flow in the music world, e.g. bass players describing their flow of interaction with drums and melody as being "in the pocket" or "in the groove". Or, you could think about Flow in oriental forms of meditation and spirituality e.g. Zen, Taoism as well as some martial arts masters describing an altered state of consciousness.

In fact, there are a great number of experiences you could term as Flow in normal daily life: computer programmers getting into a state of Flow they describe as being "wired", mathematicians being "in the zone", etc.

Flow is, in other words, an innately positive experience, known to produce intense feelings of enjoyment, as well as optimal performance, personal growth and skill development (see figure).

Why the theory of Flow should be interesting to designers - and interaction designers specifically - is very simple: it is the ultimate measure of quality for any object which has been designed to match its interaction with users in such a way that the latter stop thinking about the interaction and become able to focus and immerse themselves in the task beyond the interface.

Just as you don't think about moving your left and right leg when you walk, a properly designed interface will let you interact with an object without forcing you to think about the interaction itself.

Automobile interiors, for example, have been largely designed to achieve this. A car that has been designed with Flow in mind is a car that you drive in such a way that it becomes like an extension of your own body. The car's interface doesn't obstruct your chain of thoughts as you accelerate, decelerate, turn left or right in order to go through space.

This is especially important in the automobile sector, for two reasons. The first is that we obviously don't want users to think too much about the act of driving itself when they should be paying attention to the road. The other is that driving a car is a very immersive experience: the driver is literally "inside" the car. From an interactive point of view, you "interact in" the car, becoming one with the car. The experience is very powerful, especially in luxury cars where - depending on the brand philosophy - this immersive interaction experience can be even more important than the car's performance itself. This is an altogether different and more intensive experience from other designed objects or interfaces where the object is something to "interact at". The "interacting at" part of driving happens between the user-car entity and the road / city. More on this later.

As technology and product design have converged, the impact of Flow on design has greatly increased, especially in terms of commercial success.

For example, the huge commercial success of both the iPod and the iPhone can be largely attributed to Flow. When the iPod came out, there were already a few mp3 players on the market, all performing pretty well in terms of playback quality and other intrinsic factors relating to sound itself. The key differentiator for the iPod was Flow: the way the interface "plugs into" the user's way of thinking about data. This was even more true for the iPhone, which not only turned the hardware into an "all-interface" object, but managed to make all interaction within that space very fluid, thus opening the possibility of Flow between the user and the information space behind the interface.

This is exactly the "invisible perfection" Coco Chanel described when talking about luxury. It is an approach to the making of things that places the user's experience of the product at the starting point of the design process, the object's functionality - and ultimately its commercial "raison d'être" - being to add quality to the user's experience of life, through the object.

So, if Flow-oriented product design creates such added value to commercial products that it elevates them into the realm of luxury, is it conceivable that other areas of design might also benefit from Flow thinking?

I mentioned, a couple of paragraphs ago, that Flow thinking had transposed the "interacting at" part of vehicle design so that the user and vehicle become one entity, interfacing with the road or city. This leads one to the natural conclusion that a new field of interaction design would be called for to solve the frustration and unhappiness that exists between users and cities. Looking at user frustration, for example, notice the difference between computer rage and road rage: users might hit their monitors in anger over their computer's inability to connect with a printer, but you rarely see car drivers hit their car in anger at its inability to get them to their destination. The anger is in the poor "interacting at" part, i.e. the city and transport system which the user / vehicle interacts with (which, unfortunately, sometimes involves other users and their vehicles, or large clunky buses...).

In other words, the city itself, and certainly its transport system which is the cause of endless user frustration and unhappiness, needs to be re-thought from an interactive design point of view in such a way as to open up the potential for Flow. This would result not only in happier citizens, but also increase the level of productivity and optimise their performance.

For luxury car companies, it might mean treating customers like club members, giving them access to preferential car parks or even preferential traffic lanes in a given city. For example, in these hard times, how much would London be prepared to rent out its bus lanes to Bentley for? I'm aware that this idea might be very unpopular, but it might in itself trigger off a new way of thinking about cities and traffic that would enhance the luxury experience of the car as well as the flow experience of the other stakeholders (i.e. the total group of citizens).

In the context of Flow, what might an "invisibly perfect" city look, feel and behave like?

Well, continuing with the theme of urban transport... Contrary to current practice in public transport where users relegate control of the vehicle they use to a collective driver - i.e. buses, trams, underground trains, etc. - Flow thinking would almost certainly advocate much higher levels of interactivity between moving citizens and the urban space. Just as your iPhone doesn't take over your journey in information space, so the perfect urban transport system should not take control over your journey in real space, in order to increase citizen happiness and Flow. Instead, just as on the iPhone, design and technology must focus on working seamlessly in the background to make your highly interactive journey smooth, simple and effortless.

Hence, you can be fairly sure that the commercial success or failure of the self-driving vehicles Google has recently been testing will be a factor of the interactivity they still allow users to have with the city. Anyone who's ever sat in the back of a taxi during a traffic jam will recognise that there is little happiness to be gained from handing over total control to someone or something else. Equally, centralised management of vehicle movement is unlikely to yield anything like the same results as peer-to-peer interaction.

Instead, you can imagine a kind of "augmented driving" system that enables drivers to still drive at will, with technology ensuring smooth interaction between vehicles and the city, as well as between each other, so that traffic lights, for example, might be a thing of the past, as cars detect each others' presence and keep a safe distance from each other, despite crossing each others' paths. Just as we currently have net neutrality in terms of data flow, you could set some vehicle algorithms to ensure traffic neutrality, which means, for example, that a user's sudden decision to turn into a road beyond the lane s/he currently occupies would simply activate a "meshing", or "zipper" algorithm between two lanes of traffic. Once such a system were in place, and running safely and effectively, you would start seeing much bigger commercial uptake for narrower vehicles, like the Monotracer cabin-motorbike by Peraves, which has all the interior comfort of a car, albeit that the driver and passenger sit one behind the other, the way they do in a jet fighter airplane. An increase in narrower vehicles, in turn, would increase lane usability, as you get to fit more vehicles within the same lane width. This ensures faster and smoother traffic, and so the system slowly but surely evolves towards increased happiness and Flow as users interact effortlessly with the city space.

Once you 'get' this way of thinking about interactive object design, things like the recently redesigned Routemaster buses, for example, just look like they're missing the point, beautiful and iconic as they may be (believe me, as a designer, I fully appreciate their beauty as well as their iconic status). I cannot help but think that the designers of the original Routemaster would probably be very surprised if they knew we're still using buses at all. I mean, this is 2010... Looking at science fiction movies of the 20s and 30s, like Fritz Lang's Metropolis, we were all supposed to be flying around the city using anti-gravity fields by now... Having said that, it's true that there are some moments of delight to be gotten out of the Routemaster: the simple feeling of freedom you get from hanging off the back of one is wonderful. But how does that compare to the proposition, say, of getting to any destination in London within 10 minutes, or of being able to hold twice as many meetings because the city's design idiosyncracies don't form an obstruction to your day's plan? Even sticking to today's technology, compare the brief moment of joy hanging off the back of a Routemaster on a sunny day with the sheer exhilaration of scooting around the city on a Vespa...

I have focused on urban transport, because it is such an obvious sector open for improvement, and because it illustrates most clearly the lessons that can be learned from interactive design's application to information space, and its direct parallels in the interaction with real space.

Ultimately, however, I believe the lessons hold true for any sector that puts people in a position of interaction with each other, with the space between us and with the constructs we have put in it to live our lives. In all sectors, Flow is achieved when the medium of interactivity itself disappears from the user's awareness, so that s/he can complete a task the way one interacts with, say, an iPhone rather than with an old and clunky operating system.

What are the implications of this? Well, once agility, smooth movement and Flow are achieved in a particular sector, shared physical space users (e.g. citizens) all become much more aware of the creative potential within the space itself, which leads to second and third generations of development that are inconceivable from the point of view of the observer who considers the first generation.

For example, there are today colossal businesses like Twitter, Google and Facebook that rely on opening up the potential for happiness which can be found in an intrinsic feature of information space - searching it, or sharing it, for example - in a way that Tim Berners-Lee couldn't really have conceived of when he designed the http web protocol and the html web development language.

In the same way, augmenting interaction with the city space will quickly open up new opportunities of interaction we have yet to even imagine. Millions of people increased their general level of Flow and happiness with the ease of buying and selling online, using first generation web companies like ebay and Amazon: at that point, in the online world, what could be more satisfying than being able to see every possible version of a product at the click of a mouse? Similarly, the idea of getting to one's destination within 10 minutes from leaving one's home is just the first generation of applications one can associate with augmented Flow of interaction with real space. Compared to what we have today, it would be luxury, and not just of the "invisible perfection" type. But it would be just the beginning.

Visit the Gallé website at www.galle.com

Technological evolution: fine wines and fast cars

2010-10-22T17:23:00.000-07:00

"Technological evolution: fine wines and fast cars" was published in Luxury Briefing in October 2010.

Technological evolution: fine wines and fast cars

by Alexander Gallé

The FT Innovative Design and Technology conference is taking place later this week. I'm itching to hear the speakers and am beginning to feel the adrenaline boost that - in the manner of Pavlov's dogs - technologists feel at the expectation of new "brainfood".

There was a time, not so long ago, when "technologist" was a job title. A technologist was a person who proposed and evaluated IT solutions to a commercial problem. The term quite accurately reflected the can-do-it-ism of the dotcom era: "being digital" was above all else a way of seeing industrial processes - including labour and machinery - as information processes, as bits rather than atoms.

But being a technologist today is really much more than this. After all, showing that bright and beautiful things are possible, and showing the way to achieve them, is more than a job title. It's an attitude, more closely related to a political outlook than a profession. 20th-century intellectuals may have believed in statism, whether socialist or conservative, but 21st-century thinkers seeking human progress, liberty and emancipation cannot, in my view, be anything but technologists.

A technologist attitude is what makes possible the creation of a new fine wine to beat all fine wines, by applying new technology to the process of picking the grapes, of transporting the grapes, of macerating the grapes, etc. This is what has been achieved with Chêne Bleu, the fabulous wines produced at the Domaine de la Verrière near Mont Ventoux, whose white wine (Aliot) won a gold medal at the IWC, and whose reds (Abélard and Héloïse) each won a silver.

These wines are, of course, luxury products. The combination of pioneering spirit, pure love of the subject, and dedication to technology elevates the quality standard to new heights, as well as the price tag: starting at £60 a bottle, this wine is clearly "not for everyone".

Taking the "not for everyone" approach to extremes, the new McLaren 12C was launched last week. The price tag is what it is, of course. But, more than anything, what this car epitomises to me is technological evolution.

For example, a feature once seen only on the McLaren F1, such as the ultra-safe carbon fiber "tub" seat or monocell (which allows the F1 driver to just walk out of a burning car without so much as a scratch on him) used to cost over £100,000 to make. On the new McLaren, it costs only £6,000! Give it another decade and it'll probably come as a standard in every production car around the globe.

Technologists such as Frank Stephenson, the new McLaren's chief designer, are the brains among us who take the "not" out of "not for everyone". Left to their own, away from the finger-wagging politicians, they ensure that new technologies become more available at lower cost to a wider segment of the producing sector, leading eventually to an overall improvement in the quality of everyday products. Moore's Law - twice the speed at half the price - is a rule which has applied to new chip technology for the past 40 years, as anyone familiar with the "Gordon Gekko on the beach with a brick-sized cellphone" scene from Wall Street will be aware of.

What was, only a few years ago, available exclusively to the richest and biggest companies, is now available to the smallest of market entrants, thus boosting competition in new market sectors and increasing accessibility for everyone. Luxury designers, take note...

Visit the Gallé website at www.galle.com

Luxury Briefing: the Alfa Giulietta website

2010-07-12T04:14:00.000-07:00

"Love & Mayhem: the New Alfa Giulietta website", by Alexander Gallé, originally appeared as a column in Luxury Briefing's July 2010 edition.

Love & Mayhem: the new Alfa Giulietta website
by Alexander Gallé

When I first started writing the Luxury Briefing column, a few years ago now, the idea was to call it "Love and Mayhem", focusing my analysis of the luxury sector's online activities on websites that make your heart beat faster.

Just as the best theatre plays display man's struggle with the forces of Eros (Love) and Thanatos (Death), just as Jean-Luc Godard judged that all you need to make a good movie was a girl and a gun, my thinking was that the best experiences - both online and in life itself - are the ones that bring you ample doses of love and mayhem. There can be no doubt about it: the best online experiences are informed by the language of film, and what is luxury about, if not to bring you the best possible experiences?

Alfa Romeo is a brand with a heart. Because of this, it sits in a brand category of its own. If you have any doubts about this, go on YouTube and watch any car review show you can think of. It's all about torque and horsepower and little niggly facts that make the critics compare and contrast different cars against each other, until you get to an Alfa Romeo. Suddenly, the sternest critics are prepared to throw it all away, they forgive the car any possible weaknesses they would normally pounce upon, and talk about love, about heart palpitations, about latin passion and the pleasure of driving careless and free like a leaf in the wind.

The new Giulietta's website presses those very same buttons. Just as there are plenty of sceptics that will tell you the electrics on the dashboard aren't up to standard, there are plenty of web usability analysts that will knock this website because this or that button isn't where the user would expect it. It is perhaps not completely obvious that there are, in fact, two sites (the Everyday Thrills part, and the Alfa Ego part) so that some people who just don't "get Alfa" will probably remain in their tepid state of lust deprivation.

My guess is Alfa is really appealing to all those people who have had a soft spot for the brand over the years, who perhaps always liked the brand but felt a little disappointed that the key Alfa ingredients were somehow missing from their latest models, and who are therefore prepared to spend a little more time over this site to see if the new Giulietta lives up to the heritage.

To those people, even the loading bar looking like a speedline will add something to the experience, even the way the camera tracks into the scudetto will make them want to forward this site to their fellow Alfisti.

So, yes, it'll probably take them a little while longer to find where they can download the technical specs but, by Giove, listen to that engine roaring and purring, look at that jewel of a car floating through that blood red landscape... Doesn't this website make you just want to fall in love with Alfa all over again and book a test drive?

Visit the new Alfa Giulietta site at www.alfagiulietta.com

Visit the Gallé website at www.galle.com

Mitsi, leather bags and accessories with love from Brasil

2010-07-06T05:40:00.000-07:00

Gallé launch the new website for Mitsi, the Brazilian leather bags and accessories brand.

www.mitsifashion.com

www.galle.com

Luxury Briefing: Luxury vs. Action Heroes

2010-05-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

Luxury vs. Action Heroes, by Alexander Gallé, originally appeared as a column in Luxury Briefing's May 2010 edition.

Luxury vs. Action Heroes

by Alexander Gallé

BaselWorld, to be frank, can sometimes be a little disappointing...

Or rather, it can be if you're more interested in watch brands' communications than in their complications. The moment you walk through that long corridor at Geneva airport on your way to Basel, all you see is an endless row of ads displaying three-quarter-angle product shots with tired slogans on plain-coloured backgrounds, the only difference being the logos underneath them. None of them really stand out, and very few of them will even try to do something resembling a lifestyle campaign. The ones that do go there inevitably end up complementing their ads with some word-kit-generated platitudes about experiencing luxury or indulging oneself in a unique world of craftsmanship.

There are the exceptions, of course, brands that have understood that people don't buy a £20,000 watch because they want to know what time it is - a £50 quartz watch will do just fine if that's all you want - but because they're enchanted and engaged. Some companies, like Patek Philippe, try to own an aspect of time itself: long time, time expressed as a legacy, leaving something for the next generation, etc. Our own studio's work for Corum, from 2005 to 2009, tried to own another aspect of time: the now. This aspect of time inevitably takes you down the road of "seizing the moment", from which came the idea that there is a Corum watch for every exceptional hero you want to be. Want to become a great statesman? Buy the Romvlvs watch. A billionaire? Buy the Coin watch. A great adventurer? Buy the Admiral's Cup... What all these great careers have in common is that you need courage to take the first step. You need courage to quit your day job and run for candidate, start your own business or travel the world.

Result: Corum is courage. Unlock yourself and conquer the world. Unlock and Conquer.

Nothing expressed this better, of course, than Corum's owner himself: Severin Wunderman, Mr. Courage incarnated. A Holocaust survivor who went to America as a kid after the war, who founded Gucci Timepieces in the 70s, who beat cancer in the 80s, who bought Corum in the 90s and designed some of the most theatrical and interesting watches in the 00s. When Severin Wunderman passed away, about 18 months ago, a huge source of courage and creativity simply vanished from the watch industry.

How delightful, therefore, to have found a new brand that expresses these values with all the more aplomb. And how refreshing to see that it is a small brand, with an even smaller advertising budget.

I remember thinking a few years ago how great it would be if luxury brands could get more involved with extreme sports. Most millionaires today are under 40. Many of them have made their fortunes from dotcoms and cool tech companies. Many of them like to do the kind of sports that'll either make your heart stop or pump more blood to your brain than could possibly fit between your ears. So, you would think luxury brands would be falling over each other to attach themselves to something other than golf or tennis. How about skydiving, freediving, snowboarding, parkour or rock climbing?

Enter Linde Werdelin, who not only make the watches to give you that adrenaline rush, but who have also embarked on a new and exciting communications route: graphic novels. Action heroes and heroines, all sporting the coolest gadgets on their wrists while flying, running and swimming to the Earth's most extreme extremities.

What's even more exciting is the level of interaction you will see with the brand communications over the coming months, until the newly branded site is officially launched. Much of the audience's feedback, ideas for new characters and stories, are discussed openly on the brand's own Facebook page. New pictures of character illustrations and outlines for future stories are presented and discussed right there. Nothing gets a fanclub going more than this kind of open-source, open-minded, peer-to-peer way of interacting with the audience.

Of course, you need an action hero's nerve to do something like this, because getting it wrong when you stand out that much will make your brand that much more vulnerable. The stories will have to be engaging, the characters will have to look sexy and ultra cool, and the content will have to have its own emotional rewards rather than just look like a feature-length ad for the watches themselves. But Linde Werdelin's rewards will be there for years to come, as new episodes come out in time for new collection launches. Walking down that corridor in Geneva's airport will become something to look forward to with all the excitement and anticipation of a kid waiting for the newsagents to open, so they can buy their latest fix of action and adventure.

www.luxury-briefing.com

www.galle.com

Michel Dyens, brand identity and website

2010-02-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

Gallé create brand identity and website for Michel Dyens, the luxury industry's leading investment banking and M&A specialist.

If I had to choose one person in the luxury sector who best incarnates its values, it would have to be Michel Dyens. For what is luxury if not courteousness, culture and quiet confidence? Aside from these great personal qualities, Mr Dyens's knowledge of this industry is simply encyclopedic.

www.micheldyens.com
www.galle.com

Van Pul & Thieltgen: brand identity and website

2010-02-01T10:11:00.000-08:00

Gallé create brand identity and website for Van Pul & Thieltgen, the Brussels-based executive search company.

Van Pul was an interesting brief, since the company brings into the executive recruitment market an approach that is very much that of a luxury brand, both in its values and its aesthetic approach.

The company was created by Mischa van Pul - ex-partner at Russell Reynolds and Heidrick & Struggles - and Catherine Thieltgen, an ex-Unilever executive now dedicated to business coaching.

Their added value lies in the complementary nature of these two services, providing not only a very 'boutique' and focused way of working that you just don't get from the larger players in this sector, but also an approach to human resources that is highly original and, well, unique: human resources as a raw material that an artisan needs to craft in order to deliver a made-to-measure 'product'.

This is how Van Pul approach the task of placing and nurturing the executives they take on: like a piece of the finest wood that needs to be crafted and shaped into a beautiful and useful item of furniture.

Our own treatment of the brand aimed to bring to the foreground this idea of 'craftsmen in executive search' as well as the added value of the two complementing partners, which is expressed rather well in the slogan - Heroes are Made - as well as the isotype: aside from being perfectly symmetrical and balanced, it actually looks like an instrument that might be used by a precision-driven craftsman.

www.vanpul.com
www.galle.com

Luxury Briefing: Google vs LVMH

2009-12-02T05:04:00.000-08:00

Google vs. LVMH, by Alexander Gallé, is a column published originally in Luxury Briefing's December 2009 edition.
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Google vs. LVMH
by Alexander Gallé

2009 will be remembered as the year luxury giants piled up the lawsuits against the internet giants. First came eBay, then Google.

In a recent column, I took eBay's side in the ebay vs. LVMH case, presenting eBay as a modern-day saviour of the free market system, the very thing that ensured the success of the luxury industry to begin with. Some readers responded that the basic flaw of the free market is that it only works in a 'perfect information' environment. Simply put, the point made is that true demand / supply equilibrium can only be achieved when consumers have all the information about the options at hand. This has long been the ground for accusations made against the advertising industry: that it distorts the information presented to the consumer.

In this column, I argue that what is true for goods and services is equally true for information: a free market in information ensures near-perfect information, much in the way that the free market ensures a near-perfect match between the supply of goods and services and what people actually want.

Let's imagine, for example, that a documentary comes out explaining some horrible method of producing everyone's favourite food. Having watched the documentary, opponents of the free market will immediately call for tough regulation to ensure new standards in food production.

What they are forgetting, however, is that the documentary itself is a product of free entreprise: a producer sees an opportunity to produce a documentary that everyone will want to watch - which means he will sell it to many TV channels and get a high return on his investment - and invests in getting the best possible information to make his case, invests in cameras, cameramen, etc. The documentary is made, lots of people see it and make up their own minds as to whether they still want to consume their favourite food. The market in everyone's favourite food is then adjusted accordingly. Problem solved.

Of course, not every product or service on the market deserves a documentary. Some things just require lots of press articles, or academic papers, or opinion pieces, or blogs, or other forms of cheaply-produced information. As the free market, via the web, supplies all this information, we find that some of it is very valuable, and some of it less so. A measure of information value is called for. That measure is relevance.

Enter Google: the search engine that ensures the highest possible relevance in relation to consumers' information requests.

A quick description of Google's services. Google has turned the web into a questions-and-answers medium. Users type a question in the form of keywords, and they receive an answer in the form of links to various websites that all claim to address the subject of enquiry.

Google's way of measuring relevance is two-fold.

First, the website publisher makes a claim in his website's meta-data that it is about a particular subject, by attaching keywords to it. Google measures the frequency of said keywords in relation to the website's actual content. If this frequency is high, the site is deemed more relevant.

Second, the website is linked to by other websites, by other people who find its content useful or interesting. Google values this type of relevance the way an academic paper is valued when many people refer to it in their own work: the more people quote you, the more important you become. According to Google, the more people link to you, the more important you become.

The usefulness of this method of sorting has proven itself by the very fact that Google became, without advertising or substantial PR activity, the preferred search-engine for hundreds of millions of web users. You only have to cast your mind back to the mid-to-late 90s - the pre-Google era - to see the value of this service, which is provided to the world in unlimited quantities entirely free.

Now, Google operates in a free market. Just as we do not expect bakers and butchers to provide bread and meat out of some charitable sense of duty to society, we do not expect Google to do this work unpaid either. Google's source of income is in the paid-for search results. Google makes no claim that this information is not paid for: the paid-for search results are separated, and highlighted in a different colour to the rest of the algorythm-generated content. It is, in other words, not Google undermining the integrity of the information by telling you this paid-for information is relevant to the keywords you entered, but the people who paid for it.

LVMH are now suing Google because some of the (mostly paid-for) search results come from vendors of counterfeit goods. But suing Google is suing the messenger, or the postal company, who delivered a letter with bad news. If LVMH is in the mood for suing, let them sue the people who paid for the keywords. If their claim is that there are too many to monitor, let them create their own search engine to track them all: the data is as accessible to them as it is to Google. They may not even need to do much of the tracking work themselves: if they think consumers are up for denouncing the vendors of counterfeit goods, let them create a simple peer-to-peer network that will enable consumers to report the vendors.

This will ensure that the information - the vital ingredient that ensures market recognition of the superior quality claimed by LVMH and other luxury brands - remains free-flowing and, of course, near-perfect.

www.luxury-briefing.com | www.galle.com

Luxury: the YouTube way

2009-09-03T05:36:00.000-07:00

Luxury: the YouTube way is a column written by Alexander Gallé for Luxury Briefing's September 2009 edition.

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Luxury the YouTube way

by Alexander Gallé

My last column (Ebay vs. Luxe) got quite a bit of response, and a few people seem to have taken to the argument's main point: Ebay is a free market and everyone benefits from keeping free markets free, including the luxury sector, which is itself a product of that free market.

However, quite a few responses were made along the lines of "yes, it may be a product of the free market, but now that it exists it should be protected from the free market where and when the latter is proven to be a threat to the sector".

This response assumes that today's luxury industry is the best it can possibly be, that no evolution in this sector is possible, that it is the final answer to the long evolutionary path that has taken it to this point. The outlook is akin to the one that argues human beings today are the be all and end all, the end point of the biological evolutionary path that has led to our current DNA structure. Are there that many people who believe today's luxury sector is providing the best possible version of anything a consumer might possibly want or need?

Let's illustrate how things could be improved, and how the digital mindset might be applied to such a goal.

Take the beer sector. Let's make a hypothetical assumption that we know who produces the best beer in the world: the Belgians.

So, now, let's look at how the Belgians got there.

Belgium produces an immense variety of beers. At last count, there were over 500 different brands of beer in Belgium. Nothing special, you may say, plenty of industries have over 500 different brands of the same product. But here's where Belgian beer is different to other industries: with those 500 brands of beer come 500 radically different beers! There are dark beers, light beers, white beers, double-fermented beers, triple-fermented beers, beers using different types of hops and different types of grain, beers using fruit juice before the second fermentation, beers adding fruit at the end of the fermentation process, beers sold with the yeast still in the bottle, cloudy beers, clear beers, beers produced by monks in a monastery, beers produced by chemists in a lab, etc.

In other words: Belgium is the YouTube of beer.

To explore the metaphor a little further: hundreds of independent producers make something they're happy with. Then, they look at what everyone else produces, and consider improving their product, or changing it somewhat to attract a different public. Then someone new comes along, and produces everything in a radically different way, it catches on and becomes a viral hit, and the story goes on. Just like on YouTube's comments pages, the feedback and counterfeedback among producers and consumers is the source of endless conversations. Sure, every now and then, a few producers might say: "That's not beer, that's something else". But others simply reply: "Who cares? It tastes nice and people seem to like it". Nobody will ever say "Here's a law that says you can't add cherries to your grains and hops". Freedom to do what you want with what you have in front of you is the essential driver behind the sector's evolution.

Looking at the overall effect of such a mindset, looking at the overall quality that this "Web-2.0-avant-la-lettre" model has brought to this particular sector, there can no doubt that, today, it is the free-market-led digital environment that contains within it the necessary culture of openness and freedom, that is the lifeblood of creation, adaptation, and just-do-it-ism, which produces the fertile ground of new ideas that will surely produce the next best thing, ensuring the only constant luxury should really be about: quality.

www.luxury-briefing.com
www.galle.com

Chêne Bleu: website and brand identity

2009-07-14T06:51:00.000-07:00

Gallé launch website for the 'couture' French winemakers Chêne Bleu.

Branding Chêne Bleu and designing the website was an amazing experience, and a very steep learning curve.

In terms of brand communications there are, first of all, many deep and complex layers of information about the wine product itself and what Nicole and Xavier Rolet were trying to do with it. Talking about Chene Bleu means talking about:

- biodynamic wine principles
- altitude and its effects on sugar crystallisation
- pellicular maceration, a brand new technology that ensures perfect control over the skin contact i.e. contact between the skin of the grapes which contain the fermenting yeasts and the juice, which contains the sugars
- the use of propolis instead of sulphites to protect the vines against diseases, creating a rich and biodiverse eco-space for bees, insects and other bugs to actually thrive, ensuring the vines are stronger and more productive
- measuring the direction the winds come from; La Verriere is surrounded by forests, and overlooks Mont Ventoux, so different winds make a difference to the type of air the vines receive, which carries with it different pollens and perfumes from the various trees and plants
- developing methods for picking and moving small quantities of grapes from the vines to the winery to ensure the amount of time the skin is in contact with the juice is under control
- that, and much, much more...

Every single detail has been studied obsessively, discussed, intellectualised, brainstormed and worked tirelessly in order to get this amazingly complex brand identity known as Chêne Bleu, not just a wine, but a mission.

Aside from the product itself, there is a rich cultural package that comes with Chene Bleu. Ranging from medieval folklore, which two of the wines take their name from (Abélard and Héloïse), to the study of La Verrière's own history as a glassmaking atelier (Aliot was the name of the glass blower) and as a refuge for crusading knights before that...

I think we did a good job. The website is full of rich, interesting content, and the brand feels very consistent accross a range of media, i.e. on the labels, on the website, in the printed material, etc.

If you want to know what it's like meeting a team who are entirely taken over by the ideals of making the best possible wine, take a look at the Chêne Bleu website.

www.chenebleu.com
www.galle.com

Gallé launch websites for Lebua Hotels & Resorts

2009-05-20T06:42:00.000-07:00

Gallé create two new websites for luxury hotels and resorts group Lebua. Visit Lebua Bangkok and Lebua New Zealand.

www.lebua.com

www.galle.com

Luxury Briefing: eBay vs LVMH

2009-05-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

eBay vs. LVMH, by Alexander Gallé, is a column published originally in Luxury Briefing's June 2009 edition.
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This column may not be the most popular one I've ever written. Still, the court case between eBay and LVMH needs to be addressed by anyone who cares about the future of luxury as well as of the internet.

My argument, as a web designer for luxury brands, but also as an economist, is that the current legal route taken by LVMH is one of unsustainable laziness which will eventually lead to its own destruction.

The legal approach is very lazy indeed. First of all, the message it sends to the public is this: "The alternatives to buying LVMH's authentic products are so good that we now have to resort to legal ways to stop them from existing. There is no economic reason why someone would buy our products when the alternatives are just as good at a lower price".

Secondly, it seems LVMH is simply barking at the wrong tree because it's easier to pursue eBay than the counterfeiters. Getting eBay into trouble will not discourage the counterfeiters any more than closing your town's market square. The market, both buyers and sellers, will just move as far under the radar as it has to. Unfortunately for lawyers, the laws of the market are closer to the laws of nature than they are to anything they could draft up.

Finally, eBay is a platform for a free market. In fact, it represents a form of free market which the Western world has all but forgotten, to its detriment. When we argue against free markets, we argue against prosperity. Can you imagine the prosperity the world would experience if, say, farmers in Bolivia could trade their products directly on eBay, offering their products directly to the highest bidders worldwide? Such a system would create infinitely more wealth around the world than anything Fairtrade or CaféDirect could imagine in their wildest dreams...

More importantly for the luxury sector, these conditions eBay creates are the very same conditions that enabled luxury brands to start in the first place. The liberalism it stands for is the very same liberalism Europe saw in the 18th and 19th century, when many of our leading luxury brands started out. Free market liberalism is the very environment that enabled 19th century luxury brands to start out on the simple promise of unrivalled quality. Unrestricted worldwide trade is the very condition that enabled merchants and businessmen to offer great new products from around the world at prices reasonable enough to sustain a steady public.

eBay's liberal market model has enabled countless craftsmen, industrialists and artisans to find a niche in the world market for the products they create. Finding a sustainable niche is a conditio sine qua non for a sector driven by market-reducing values rather than lowest price. Values such as craftsmanship and excellence, for example, the very core of what the luxury industry is about. If we care about these values, we must ensure the free market continues to enable future generations of Louis Vuittons to say "I can do better than everyone of you and beat you on the price, too, and I'll prove it".

Only by addressing the economic methods that make counterfeiters so successful (i.e. they provide very good products at lower prices) will we ensure a healthy evolution of the industry's products, to produce even better products than we do today. That is why anyone who cares about luxury should support eBay.
www.luxury-briefing.com
www.galle.com

Gallé create Corum's online catalog

2008-11-10T07:35:00.000-08:00

Gallé create online catalog for Corum Timepieces.

www.corum.ch

www.galle.com

Gallé redesigns brand identity and website for Purple Truffle

2008-10-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

Gallé redesign brand identity and website for Purple Truffle, the bespoke travel company.
www.purpletruffle.com
www.galle.com

Humans, Online

2008-10-19T09:14:00.000-07:00

"Humans, Online" - by Alexander Gallé - first published in Luxury Briefing's October 2008 issue.

HUMANS, ONLINE

by Alexander Gallé

One year has passed since our launch of Artipolis, the arts network. Much has happened since 11 October 2007: the world of social networks has definitely flourished since then, and some trends have started to form. Our little experiment provides some food for thought for the luxury industry...

The main lesson to learn, in my view, is that social networks can be much more personal and authentic than people seem to be prepared to admit. The story I hear more often than anything is that social networks are less "real", that real human interaction doesn't happen there, hindered by the medium itself. To some extent, happily, this may be true. To some extent, social networks are just more of the "secondary experience", as George Steiner would put it. There's nothing quite like "being there".

However, it is perfectly feasible for a social network to build up a high level of trust and integrity between its members e.g. insisting on real personal details rather than pseudonyms; invitations being passed through friends, creating an expanding circle of trust, rather than a pool of people with a common interest from around the planet, etc. Do that, and you'll be pleasantly surprised to see just how many members will happily do business with other members, give each other the benefit of the doubt, and how many will actually develop friendships and partnerships in the real world. Some of our members have actually said that they now see the network as a more personal form of communication. Because it's all in the words, from brain to brain as it were, without the distractions of other information channels you get in the real world.

In other words, the idiosyncracies of the medium are providing an opportunity for a new form of communication, one no less real and authentic than real life interaction.

What this means for the luxury industry - an industry that is built around the values of personal attention to customers - is that network technology can become the channel of a more personal impression. Rather than reduce the personal touch, it can increase the personal touch, and for more people, too.

I was very recently asked by a jewellery brand renowned for their personal care how I thought they should manage the increasing influx of website enquiries. I replied without hesitation that they should transfer their best shop assistant (the one with the real "human touch") to the website. This answer comes directly from my experience of online human-to-human interaction on Artipolis and other social networks. There is no reason to treat a website enquiry any different to a customer in your store asking a question. The response should be immediate, and it should be personal. The technology exists to provide a live chat facility, so put a real name and a real face to the website, and give customers an answer within 15 seconds, not through email but through the website itself. You could even make a feature of the online shop assistant "approaching" the user, to see if they need any help, instead of waiting to be asked a question. Unlike the real store equivalent, a good online store assistant would be able to handle more than one customer at any given time and, with immediate access to an ocean of information, should be able to give much better informed and more considered advice. If any industry should try augmenting the ecommerce experience with this kind of interaction, the luxury industry is it.

www.luxury-briefing.com

www.galle.com

Blogging your way out of the recession

2008-09-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

Blogging your way out of the recession, by Alexander Gallé, first published in Luxury Briefing September 2008 issue.

In my last column, I wrote that the recession might just prove to be an opportunity to rethink how luxury brands communicate with their audiences, and I received a couple of emails from readers asking how, specifically, this could be achieved. So, here it goes...

This time last year, someone on ASmallWorld started a forum about how bad Silverjet was. Silverjet was an airline offering first-class only seats from their own dedicated terminal at Luton to Newark. I was very impressed with the service and had actually bought some shares in the company as a result. So, I clicked on the subject and read about this person's misadventures when trying to change a flight, which was followed by a whole lot of replies from other members giving out misinformed opinions about the company and what it was trying to do. I started replying to the forum: how no other airline had their own terminal at Luton, how I had personally boarded the plane in less than 20 minutes from arrival, how it was the only airline with a Michelin-starred chef on board, how there just wasn't anything like it on the market except for chartering your own private jet, etc.

As it turned out, ASmallWorld were about to start hosting an ad campaign for Silverjet, so it occurred to someone to contact a friend at Silverjet and sort out the original poster's problem, which concluded the forum's exchange.

But I remember thinking later that this was a missed opportunity. Silverjet ended up spending a lot of money on a really, really silly online banner campaign that didn't actually inform the user about any of the service's unique selling points and, until the company's bankruptcy a few months later, nobody really 'got it'.

Somehow, there are still many companies, especially in the luxury sector, for whom blogging and social networks are still alien concepts. It just doesn't occur to anyone to simply start a blog representing the company's voice, or put forward its point of view on a forum. Or if it does, it's always a half-hearted idea to stick something on the back of the brand's own website, "where it's safe and we can delete negative comments", like a 21st-century version of Pravda. This territorial attitude simply won't do. It won't, because, whether you like it or not, your customers will talk about you, and they won't do it on your own website if they don't want to.

They'll do it on their own blogs, on industry-specific forums, on social networks, on their own website if they really feel strongly about it. Before you know it, someone hits a note, gets a following, the forum in question picks up momentum and shows up on Google's top-10 search results alongside your 'official' website. The next thing you know, a mainstream journalist asks you, the CEO, about it during an interview. You decide to call your PR company and tell them to do something about it, when the truth is you're the one who should personally be doing something about it, starting by listening online to what people have to say when they're not being asked the wrong questions in your expensive focus groups. These are people who, for the most part, cared enough about your brand or product to buy it and then voice their disappointment. Their conversation is happening, are you going to join in and rediscover your relevance to your customers?

Here is the opportunity: recessions, as a game of last man standing, are the perfect moment to rethink your advertising budget, and whether you're really getting a bang for your buck. This recession in particular is the first one that truly allows you to hear what your customers are telling you, and to say what you want them to hear. What are you waiting for? Start blogging your way out!

www.luxury-briefing.com | www.galle.com

Gallé launch website for MCM

2008-07-10T07:48:00.000-07:00

Gallé create the website for MCM, the newly relaunched luxury bags, shoes and accessories brand.

www.mcmworldwide.com

www.galle.com

Luxury and Social Networks

2008-05-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

Luxury and Social Networks, by Alexander Gallé, was originally published in Luxury Briefing magazine in May 2008.

I wrote a piece about Web 2.0 a while ago, which received quite a lot of good feedback. The central premise of the column was that - just like in the early days of the web - the luxury industry was simply not taking web 2.0 seriously, when closer analysis revealed that web 2.0 and luxury were actually a match made in heaven.

It led to a few discussions about exactly how the luxury industry should take web 2.0 seriously, so I thought I’d focus the next few articles on different aspects of web 2.0, the first one being the act of sharing on social networks.

The standard way of visualizing a social network is as a mesh, where the nodes in the mesh are people and the lines in the mesh are the connections between them.

This model has proved useful in some ways, because it’s helped us to really understand that the value of a space such as aSmallWorld, Artipolis or Facebook is determined by the people in it, and that you can no longer think of it as a one-to-many information channel, but as a many-to-many information space. It has also led a few people in luxury - myself included - to think of social networks as the online equivalent of members clubs.

However, while it is good to place people at the centre of the information space, this model overlooks the core reason why people connect in the first place: objects.

I’m talking about objects in the physical and abstract sense of the word. For instance, a hobby and a job will connect me to very different sets of people. Neither of these are ‘objects’ in the everyday sense of the word but, in an information space, they become objects: the things that connect me to these different sets of people. You could say that a large part of the objects’ information value is in their intensity as vectors to connect me to other people.

This overlap between physical and abstract objects becomes most interesting when it is the overlap itself that creates meaningful connections in a network.

On Artipolis, for example, we have recently sponsored a member’s gallery exhibition of photographs in which many of the models were other members of Artipolis (interestingly, they were nudes wearing animal masks…).

Here, the objects – the photographs - serve as a vector not only to create connections between people, but to create new objects of expression, new photographs. The artworks would literally not have existed, were it not for the act of sharing in the network itself: a true example of sharing as a measure of value. In web 1.0, the importance was on the ability for a web user to find what they were looking for, through search engines like Google. In web 2.0, the importance is on the user’s ability to share what they have found in a meaningful way, which turns social networks, effectively, into ‘share engines’.

I believe this is where social networks become interesting for the luxury industry. It is through objects that luxury speaks, creating meaningful ideological bonds between people. Luxury objects can be very physical: a finely crafted watch by Corum, an intricately designed pen by Montegrappa. More often than not, however, the objects’ physicality is irrelevant, serving merely as a ticket into an ideological space where their true value is measured by their ability to be shared and communicated as objects of information.
www.luxury-briefing.com | www.galle.com

Gallé design website for Palazzo Tornabuoni

2008-04-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

Gallé create the website and a collection of ambient soundtracks for Palazzo Tornabuoni, Europe's leading residence club in the heart of Florence, managed by Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts.

www.palazzotornabuoni.com

www.galle.com

Gallé launch Artipolis, the arts network

2007-10-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

Artipolis is a private network of individuals who share a passion for the arts: a unique online environment where people interested in the arts can meet and exchange ideas, discuss related business and enjoy the company of like-minds.

The network is managed as a hybrid between arts magazine and members club. As a magazine, we publish regular interviews with key artistic personalities such as Werner Herzog, Peter Greenaway, Vittorio Storaro and Sandro Chia. As a members club we organise and facilitate regular arts-oriented events, masterclasses, film premieres, etc. for Artipolitans around the world.

NB: as well as the brand identity and design of the online network itself, all back-end software to run the website (forums, profile editor, messenger, etc.) was developed in-house at the Gallé studio.
www.artipolis.com
www.galle.com

Gallé design website for The Widder Hotel, Zurich

2007-08-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

Gallé design and develop new website for The Widder in Zurich - one of the Leading Hotels of the World - featuring a custom-built virtual tour and bespoke CMS system, as well as a privately commissioned soundtrack.

www.widder.ch
www.galle.com

Gallé redesign website for Marbella Club

2007-06-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

Gallé create new website for Marbella Club, the luxury resort in Marbella, Spain, one of the Leading Hotels of the World.

www.marbellaclub.com

www.galle.com

Gallé create ad campaign for Corum

2007-04-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

Gallé directs "Unlock and Conquer", Corum's 2007 advertising campaign, developing a new communication strategy that brings to the foreground the brand's courageous and bold designs.

www.corum.ch
www.galle.com

Gallé launch phase-two website for Marchesa

2007-02-20T09:20:00.000-08:00

Gallé design second-phase website for Marchesa, the red carpet's favourite fashion brand, in time for the 2007 Academy Awards.

www.marchesa.com
www.galle.com

Gallé redesign website for Casadelmar

2007-01-20T09:27:00.000-08:00

Gallé design new brand identity, website and soundtrack for Casadelmar, Corsica's first design hotel.

www.casadelmar.fr
www.galle.com

Gallé launch second-phase website for Corum

2006-09-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

Gallé launch second-phase website for Corum, the ultimate luxury Swiss timepieces brand.
www.corum.ch
www.galle.com

Luxury, Technology and the Long View

2006-09-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

Luxury, Technology and the Long View, by Alexander Gallé, was first published in Luxury Briefing's 10-year anniversary issue in September 2006.

"In 2001, technology will be so evolved, every house will have a robot to fetch our slippers and make us a gin and tonic as soon as we get home from work".

This is how people talked about the year 2001, back in the 50s, whenever they talked about bright and wonderful futures. For the more hardcore ideas of the time, read Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov.

2001 was still a pretty long way off in the 50s. What's interesting, though, is that we still carried on talking about the year 2001 like the magic year of technology throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s, right until the 90s. As the year 2001 got closer and closer, our vision of the future literally became more and more shortsighted.

The upshot of this is that, since the late 90s, the status of future-guru is given to practically anyone who can imagine what wonderful new toys technology will bring us over the next 3 years. What started as an idealistic and futuristic vision is looking more and more like a walk in the fog.

All this, at a time when what we need more than ever is a long view.

Luxury brands know all about the long view. One of the key market differentiators in luxury is a long heritage: fine X for connoisseurs since YYYY. There is a future for luxury, too: consider Asprey's or Patek Philippe's proposition that you're not buying their products for yourself, but for your descendants.

One cannot help but feel, though, that heritage and descendance are often just trumpcards being brandished to add a few buzzwords to a short-termist marketing plan, or to polish yet another corporate buyout strategy with yet another re-branding plan.

Notre-Dame took more than 600 years to build, some of the pharaohs' temples more than 900. The people who conceived these projects knew they would be long gone before completion. 600 years is more than 20 generations. True, much of what took so long then could be built in 10 years today, but consider what could be achieved if luxury brands' looked a bit further than the average 5-year business plan. Consider the sort of project that a modern luxury brand could 'own' and aim to complete in, say, just one human lifetime.

Why all this philosophising, in a column that is supposed to look at the merits of the latest and greatest luxury websites? Well, Luxury Briefing is 10 years old this month. Coincidence would have it that 10 years ago I designed my first commercial website. Much has evolved. Even the essentials couldn't be squeezed meaningfully into a single page.

However, infinitely more things are going to evolve in the next 10 years. The opening up of resources, technique and information has only just begun. The development of unprecedented quality in all products and services, real and virtual, has only just begun. The impact of an open and transparent way of doing business has only just begun (and there are many more Enron scandals to come, too).

Equally, the idiosyncracies of the interactive medium have only just begun to become part of the fabric. It took a couple of hundred years before the full impact of Gutenberg's invention of the printing press was felt, but it undoubtedly reshaped human thinking at its very core. It took film over 20 years before D.W. Griffiths and Sergei Eisenstein formalised a basic 'film grammar' into the craft of filmic storytelling, and attempted to construct their first features. During much of the first decade of the 20th century, films were quite successful being no longer than the length of a single reel, as producers simply couldn't envisage the attention span of the audience to be any longer than this.

In terms of cultural impact, we are clearly still only at the beginning of the beginning of an all-pervasive technological revolution that will void of relevance much of the luxury sector's current interests and concerns. What if, in only a few decades, upper and lower social classes evolved into completely different species, as the former is genetically engineered and re-engineered, generation after generation, to become smarter than the competition? The cultural meaning of 'luxury' in such a context would be something quite different to what we have in mind today. The income hierarchy alone would be replaced by something new and much more interesting. The definition of 'being special', of being 'one of the elect', would become so radically changed that luxury brands would acquire a completely different mindset and vocabulary to be understood by their customers.

The core idea behind many of today's luxury brands is to some extent a product of post-Gutenberg modernisation which enabled a commoner to put his good name, as a gentleman and craftsman, to the work he did. Many luxury brands are founded on the achievements of individuals who were both businessmen and artists, whose rise to such respectability would have been unthinkable in a feudal system, where a non-nobleman would simply not have been in a position to even contemplate such greatness outside of the religious sphere. The idea of meritocracy lies at the core of many current luxury brands' first steps. Subsequent tides in modernisation have brought into existence different types of luxury brand, which partly explains why Garrard opened in 18th century London, Boucheron in mid-19th century Paris, and Gucci in early-to-mid-20th century Florence.

Therefore, it is likely that the present idea itself of a luxury brand, its raison d'être, could only exist within a window of opportunity that the next couple of waves of technology will render obsolete. On the other hand, it is likely that technological development over the next 10 or 20 years will present luxury brands with the opportunity to acquire a new meaning that they simply haven't had before.

In this field, like in any other evolutionary system, it is not the strongest that will survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.

Gallé launch Marchesa website

2006-07-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

Gallé create website for Marchesa, the red carpet's favourite fashion brand founded by Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig. Fans include Sienna Miller, Jennifer Lopez and Scarlett Johansson.

www.marchesa.com
www.galle.com

Website and brand identity for Herschel

2006-04-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

Gallé create brand identity, advertising and website for Herschel, the wealth management group.

www.herschel.com
www.galle.com

Gallé launch new website for Gil Carvalho

2006-03-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

For Gil Carvalho's spring-summer 2006 Collection launch, Gallé add e-commerce functionality to GC website.

www.gilcarvalho.com
www.galle.com

Gallé design website for Boujis

2005-11-20T10:12:00.000-08:00

Gallé design website for Boujis, London's favourite nightclub.

www.boujis.com

www.galle.com

Gallé designs website for Jimmy Choo

2005-04-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

Gallé designs website for Jimmy Choo, the footwear brand.

www.jimmychoo.com
www.galle.com

Interview with Alexander Gallé

2005-04-15T04:41:00.000-07:00

Interview with Alexander Gallé, published originally in Luxury Briefing's May 2005 issue.

At the end of the 1990s, there was much excitement about the Internet and how it might work for luxury brands, but for many it didn’t live up to its early promise. This was due in large part to the technology and the fundamental problem of dial-up access speed which made complex imagery difficult to use. In the last 12 months, however, broadband has rapidly become commonplace, particularly at the upper end of the market, and luxury brands are beginning to realise that the Internet is once again worth their serious attention. At the same time as launching a regular column on this subject, we decided to put a series of questions to an expert in this area. Alexander Gallé, who is the Creative Director of Gallé and whose portfolio includes websites for the likes of Asprey, Boucheron, Corum, Garrard, Gil Carvalho, The Halkin, Jimmy Choo, Villa Feltrinelli and Yves Saint Laurent, gives us some thoughtful answers.

LB: What has changed in the online world that makes the Internet a more attractive proposition for luxury brands?

AG: I think there are three big developments that have made online advertising more attractive to luxury brands today than four or five years ago.

The first is to do with people and the evolution of digital producers in terms of integrity and professionalism. Initially, just after the dotcom boom, when every online agency was called Somethingfish or Yellowfrog or some other wacky pseudo- Californian name, there was little integrity in the world of online advertising. The producers of digital work are now much more professional. Personally I believe that, as in fashion and luxury, people should be much more prepared to put their own name, as gentlemen and designers, to their company: there is a real person called Yves Saint Laurent or Salvatore Ferragamo. It’s a different game when your personal reputation is at stake.

The second development is to do with the landscape, with the opening up of the media. It’s not about this or that website or online campaign in isolation, it’s about the whole communication landscape and how it can feed a customer’s journey that starts at the first point of contact with a brand, and ends with purchase and brand loyalty. I would of course include more ‘traditional’ media in this journey, such as TV or print. As an illustration, I have a client who is making her mind up today between investing in a new conventional ad campaign or a TV documentary that invites viewers to an online space, with a discussion forum and an online shop that sells the documentary’s book. That’s four different kinds of media, leading to a much deeper customer experience of her brand. But the third – and by far the biggest – development of the past few years has been in the medium itself: online technology has become more powerful and sophisticated. You could call it ‘near transparent’. A transparent medium is one that is so integrated into the way we live that we don’t even realise it’s a medium anymore. Similarly, interactive media have become less about technology and more about communication, which for us means an opportunity really to ‘enchant’ the audience.

LB: Can you elaborate on this idea of ‘enchantment’?

AG: The big point to make is that, with the advent of broadband, integrated campaigns are now more seamless, so the basic rule of profitable communication has become more pertinent than ever: to say and show the right things at the right time in order to lead people to the natural conclusion that they must buy.

The critical question, of course, is how you achieve this online. How can interactive advertising ‘enchant’ your customer, the way simple storytelling or singing does?

If you will permit a short linguistic digression... there is a German folk song that starts with the following lines: “Wo man singt, da lass’dich ruhig nieder. Böse Menschen haben keine Lieder.” The English translation of this is: “Where you singing hear, lay yourself down, free from fear. Men intent on wrong never have a song.” In French, we have a single word that translates the line “Men intent on wrong”: “méchant”, meaning “bad man”. The odd thing is that this word “méchant” is composed of the prefix “mé”- which means “no” in French – and “chant”. Méchant therefore quite literally means “without song”. Just as in French, the idea of bad, the idea of wrong, is so intrinsically related to the absence of chant and of enchantment, that only one word exists to describe them both.

So, in general human interaction and communication, the state of enchantment is equated with the feeling of good. Luxury brands’ approach to online communication surely has to start from this point.

LB: Why?

AG: Because, apart from the notion of perceived product quality, the aspiration towards some transcended and higher good – a good beyond the product – is a key value at the core of most of them. So, it’s primarily through intelligent and sustained use of ‘enchantment’ that online communication can help luxury brands – more than other brands – to develop their core values, stronger identities and better commercial results.

LB: Can you give us an example?

AG: When you become truly engaged in a film, for example, you believe you’re thinking, but really it’s the film that’s doing the thinking for you. Your chain of thoughts was going in one direction, but through aesthetics – rhythm, colours, narrative – the film hijacks that chain and takes it in a different direction. The point of contact between the two chains of thought – yours and the film’s – is what you could call the ‘point of enchantment’, the point at which the film takes over. This is done using the same language we use to describe our most engaging experiences. We say things that are physically connected to the way we perceive things: we talk in ‘seeing mode’, in ‘hearing mode’, or in ‘touching mode’. Viscerally, we experience films through the same modes. We are just talking about a more complex way to do rhetorics, using multiple media rather than just words.

You have, for example, the simplicity of talking about, say, the 10 greatest things about a product. In a similar way to what David Ogilvy used to do for Mercedes, i.e. a picture of a dashboard clock and a line underneath saying, “At 90 mph, the loudest thing you’ll hear in the car is the ticking ofthe clock.” It doesn’t say “work out the quality” or “experience the quality”, which doesn’t mean anything as a call to action. It directly relates quality with something perceptual, talking in a language that relates directly to the senses: “hear the quality”. And you do. You hear it. Quality sounds like this: "tic tic tic", like a Swiss watch.

This is crucial to good interactive communications. Most quality is perceived value, not intellectual value. You don’t calculate quality, you see it, you hear it, you feel it... and then you ‘get it’. On the other hand, you have an emotional value to communicate: purchases in luxury brands are emotional. Nobody buys a £12,000 watch because they need a watch. You just need something to trigger an emotion.

LB: Can you relate this to the online world?

AG: Probably best if I give you an example. Say we’re working on a luxury hotel in Corsica, like Casadelmar, we can start with the theme of nostalgia. How many wealthy businessmen were born outside cities and how many of them long for a romantic return to the countryside? It’s in all of us. The trick is to anchor this nostalgia to the quality of the place you’re advertising. First you create the longing by evoking memories, then you answer the longing. And again, we’re talking about very sensual language, like a childhood memory: you remember the scent of lavender, the play of light between the shutters during siesta, the rhythmic sound of the waves , you remember feeling alive. But it doesn’t have to be so romantic: we interviewed about 100 women outside Harvey Nichols when we started working for Jimmy Choo. One of our key questions was: “ Have you ever sat down to try on a pair of shoes, loved them, but decided to come back another day?” 40% of women said “ yes” for a variety of reasons, the predominant one being: I’ll come back on payday. For most of them, the experience was quickly forgotten and they never returned to buy the shoes. Leaving the store means going into another mood, dealing with work, home or just life. The point then is to create an online mnemonic ‘echo’ of the brand experience. You need similar conditions to trigger similar memories.

The minimum effort would be to send subscribers an e- mail on payday with a fantastic looking product, an interesting newsletter or the release date of the new collection. We took the online newsletter route, complete with a column by Tamara Mellon and a picture of an iconic Choo shoe with a link to Net-a-Porter, which sells them online, and it has been very successful. The point is to become part of the fabric of what goes on in the life of a London woman. So, even in a sales-driven environment the best results happen when interactive communication focuses on mnemonics, or ‘memories’, and enchantment.

Isn't there a fundamental mismatch between the luxury experience and the online one?

Luxury brands are actually perfect for the Internet. If you argue your case well, people quickly get the logic of what you’re trying to do: it’s a medium with intrinsic capacity to create and sustain meaningful and intimate dialogues between brands and consumers, as well as the most effective means of providing previously unthinkable levels of service – key attributes for most luxury brands. You don’t have to sell online to develop a very intimate online relationship with your loyal customer base. You can use online media to manage exclusive customer events, or an exclusive appointment service.

LB: What about selling online? Many luxury brands feel this would mean a loss of control and be damaging?

AG: Partly, I think this is to do with the unappealing, cheap-looking things you will typically find online. The web started as a DIY medium: the original idea was that it should be easy to learn. I too am often disappointed by poorly executed online projects. Especially because, if you do it right, miracles can happen. The luxury hotel industry, for example, is practically made for online success: hotel customers, by definition, buy something before seeing it in person. Results on good design are proven almost immediately with increased online bookings. The website we put together for The Halkin made its money back in six weeks.

LB: Who do you think is getting it right?

AG: As with any new medium, it takes a few years before you see people turning their projects into works of true craftsmanship. But the online experience today can be very close to what a brand is about and press all the luxury buttons. Gucci is doing a fantastic job at echoing everything the stores do in the online environment. The site is so ‘Gucci’. The company has really managed to evolve it over the last few years, from simple collection presentation to e-commerce. And the technology is very seamless, which is so important.

I think Colette is also doing a great job with its online boutique. It probably doesn’t sell more than 30 different products, but that’s the whole idea: you don’t choose between this or that perfume. You buy this one because Colette chose it. I think we’re going to see a lot more of that in the coming years: smaller, not bigger. We’re back to the small boutiques and artisans reaching an audience purely on lifestyle and design and of course if you are small, a website is a lot more affordable than a store.

LB: What about sites that you have worked on yourself?

AG: I was very happy with the Asprey website. When Asprey rebranded itself, the approach was ‘great brands are made by great products’. So the starting point was that if Asprey made websites, this is what they would look like. I wanted the site to be like an accessory: canvas and navigation at the same time; and to use an aesthetic unit that defines Britishness. It suddenly hit me: stripes are to the British what spots are to the French. Shirts, schoolties, pinstripe suits... the navigation blends form and function in a truly unique way: each section is a stripe, which widens when you roll the mouse over it to present the sub-sections inside. When I presented the stripes concept to CEO Gianluca Brozzetti, we immediately had a great discussion about creating belts and braces with the purple stripes pattern.

The great thing about working for Gianluca Brozzetti is that he went for something completely different for Garrard: we created a surreal world with golden giraffes on scooters. It was fun! The transactional section was a bubblegum machine that sends you a £100 raspberry- or silver-coloured ball by post. You have no idea what you’re buying until you open the ball. The Japanese loved it.

Our most recent Gallé baby is the website for Gil Carvalho, which I really love. It’s a complete communications project: we designed the logo, the aesthetic styleguide and we got to be very playful with the project as a result. We’re tying the news letters into the shoe parties Gil organises at the studio, and around his extravagant lifestyle. It’s like a rock band in many ways: rock bands keep a permanent dialogue with their fan-clubs through newsletters, access to the stars, events... I quite like what Sacha Biyan and David LaChapelle, both photographers, are doing in the same vein: really simple, elegant sites with great pictures, tied in with books, films and fan newsletters.

There’s evidence to show that the best ideas are coming from good interactive creatives right now, because they’re the most willing to give it their best shot. They’re the most audacious and as they used to say in Rome... audaces fortuna adiuvat.

Gallé design website for Corum

2005-03-20T10:36:00.000-08:00

Gallé design and produce website for Corum, the flamboyant Swiss timepieces brand bought recently by Severin Wunderman - founder of Gucci Timepieces.

www.corum.ch
www.galle.com

Gallé create brand identity for Gil Carvalho

2005-02-20T10:40:00.000-08:00

Gallé create brand identity and launch website for Gil Carvalho, the London-based shoe designer favoured by Liz Hurley, Madonna and Kylie Minogue.

www.gilcarvalho.com
www.galle.com

Gallé designs phase-two website for Asprey

2004-04-20T15:06:00.000-07:00

Gallé art directs website for Asprey, the British luxury lifestyle house.

www.asprey.com

www.galle.com

Gallé directs cinema ident for Warner Village

2003-09-20T15:11:00.000-07:00

Gallé produces and directs new cinema ident for Village Films, part of the Warner Village group.

Watch the ident

www.galle.com

Gallé designs website for Yves Saint Laurent

2002-10-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

Gallé designs website for Yves Saint Laurent, the French fashion house.

www.ysl.com
www.galle.com

Gallé designs website for Garrard

2002-09-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

Gallé art directs online presence for Garrard, the house of the crown jeweller, recently separated from Asprey and rebranded with Jade Jagger in the creative director's chair.

www.garrard.com
www.galle.com

Gallé art directs website for Asprey

2002-06-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

Gallé designs website for Asprey, the ultimate British luxury lifestyle brand, following their recent buyout and separation from Garrard.
www.galle.com
www.asprey.com