Alexander Gallé is Partner and Creative Director at GALLÉ - a design and branding studio focused on luxury, entertainment and fashion brands - and one of Europe's leading design studios in the luxury brands online sector. Gallé's portfolio includes websites, online ads and e-commerce solutions for Yves Saint Laurent, Asprey, Fabergé, 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.
Showing posts with label luxury websites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label luxury websites. Show all posts
Saturday, 28 March 2015
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Mitsi, leather bags and accessories with love from Brasil
Gallé launch the new website for Mitsi, the Brazilian leather bags and accessories brand.
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Luxury Briefing: Luxury vs. Action Heroes
Luxury vs. Action Heroes, by Alexander Gallé, originally appeared as a column in Luxury Briefing's May 2010 edition.
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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.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Michel Dyens, brand identity and website
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
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
Thursday, 3 September 2009
Luxury: the YouTube way
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
Monday, 10 November 2008
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Gallé redesigns brand identity and website for Purple Truffle
Gallé redesign brand identity and website for Purple Truffle, the bespoke travel company.
www.purpletruffle.com
www.galle.com
Thursday, 10 July 2008
Gallé launch website for MCM
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Gallé design website for Palazzo Tornabuoni
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.
Friday, 12 October 2007
Gallé launch Artipolis, the arts network
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
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
Monday, 20 August 2007
Gallé design website for The Widder Hotel, Zurich
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.galle.com
Wednesday, 20 June 2007
Gallé redesign website for Marbella Club
Gallé create new website for Marbella Club, the luxury resort in Marbella, Spain, one of the Leading Hotels of the World.
Tuesday, 20 February 2007
Gallé launch phase-two website for Marchesa
Gallé design second-phase website for Marchesa, the red carpet's favourite fashion brand, in time for the 2007 Academy Awards.
www.galle.com
Saturday, 30 September 2006
Gallé launch second-phase website for Corum
Gallé launch second-phase website for Corum, the ultimate luxury Swiss timepieces brand.
www.corum.ch
www.galle.com
Thursday, 20 July 2006
Gallé launch Marchesa website
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.galle.com
Thursday, 20 April 2006
Monday, 20 March 2006
Gallé launch new website for Gil Carvalho
For Gil Carvalho's spring-summer 2006 Collection launch, Gallé add e-commerce functionality to GC website.
www.galle.com
Sunday, 20 November 2005
Wednesday, 20 April 2005
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