Lalique (company)
| Lalique SA | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Public company (France) |
| founding | 1962 |
| Seat | Paris, France |
| management |
Silvio Denz (Chairman of the Board of Directors) |
| Number of employees | 483 (2016) |
| sales | EUR 81.0 million (2016) |
| Branch | Luxury goods |
| Website | www.lalique.com |
Lalique SA , based in Paris, is a French luxury goods company that makes jewelry , perfume and glass objects . It was founded in 1888 by the French glass artist René Lalique . Lalique became world famous for its Art Nouveau and Art Deco jewelery creations, perfume bottles made of crystal glass and glass sculptures.
After the company's founder died, his heirs continued the tradition of designing art objects made of glass. The focus was shifted from the production of jewelry and perfume bottles to the design of large-scale art objects made of glass and crystal as well as decorative objects. Today the Lalique company is active in the production of jewelry, design objects, high-priced limited art objects, gastronomy, hotels and the creation of perfumes, some of which are offered in the company's exclusive flacons.
history
Beginnings of the Lalique company
The beginnings of the Lalique company go back to the jewelry designer and glass artist René Lalique, who first designed jewelry for various Parisian jewelers such as Cartier and Boucheron since 1882 . In 1886 he opened his own atelier on Place Gaillon and made avant-garde jewelery as a combination of various materials, such as precious metals , glass, precious stones , enamel , horn and ivory . In addition to classic pieces of jewelery, designs of lorgnets , hair combs and exclusive tiara have been handed down from this period .
Among his customers were primarily artists such as the actress Sarah Bernhardt and the entrepreneur Calouste Gulbenkian . The World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 marked the high point of his career as a jewelry designer. Art Nouveau jewelry in the manner of Lalique was now mass-produced and René Lalique turned to new fields of activity.
First glass work
René Lalique was already experimenting with glass in his early creative period. In 1891 he invented a technique to make pâte de verre , a glass paste. For his house, the Hôtel Lalique at the Cour de la Reine (today Cour Albert I. ), Lalique made glass panels with floral patterns in 1902/1903 following the style of Art Nouveau architecture. René Lalique used the property as a house, studio and showroom for his company. In 1905 he opened a new boutique on Place Vendôme , in the immediate vicinity of the Hôtel Ritz . In addition to jewelry creations, glass objects were also offered, which were made in a small atelier in Clairefontaine-en-Yvelines .
In 1908 Lalique met the perfumer François Coty and began to design fancy bottles for his fragrances. He worked with Roger & Gallet , D'Orsay and Lucien Lelong and, with his luxurious glass vessels, contributed to establishing the world reputation for French perfume. His interest in designing jewelry waned during this time and he focused on making luxury glassware for the next few years. At the same time, he developed techniques to mass-produce some of his designs.
In 1909 Lalique leased a glassworks in Combs-la-Ville , which produced his designs. By turning to pressed glass and molded glass objects, which were also produced in large numbers, the small glassworks soon could no longer meet the increasing demand. In 1915 Lalique received a patent for a special glass casting technique for molded glass, the lost wax technique , which allowed him to create editions of mass-produced casting molds.
Verrerie d'Alsace glassworks in Wingen-sur-Moder
In 1921, Lalique opened the Verriere d'Alsace glassworks in the Alsatian glassmaking town of Wingen-sur-Moder . The search for a location was initially difficult after the glassworks of Meisenthal and Saint-Louis Lalique had rejected them. Lalique opted for Wingen-sur-Moder, benefiting from government economic development measures for Alsace-Lorraine after the First World War and the advocacy of President Alexandre Millerand . In the area, where traditionally there were many glassworks, he also found well-trained specialists and glassblowers.
Réne's daughter Suzanne was also committed to the company. After her mother's death in 1909, she designed powder jars, candy jars, and later vases and other decorative objects for her father's company. At a young age she also worked for porcelain manufacturers, for the Manufacture royale de porcelaine de Sèvres . After marrying the artist Paul Haviland , whose father owned a porcelain factory in Limoges, she cultivated lively contact with artists and writers. Apart from the Lalique company, she worked in the field of painting and textile art and became known for her designs of sets and costumes from 1937.
Lalique focused on semi-machine manufacturing of pressed glass in the 1920s. Characteristic products for this creative period were ornate ashtrays, which were particularly valued by women, as well as hood ornaments for the car brands Citroën , Bentley , Bugatti , Hispano-Suiza , Rolls-Royce and Voisin .
At the arts and crafts exhibition in Paris in 1925, the term Art Déco was first used for the style to which many of the products Lalique had been manufacturing since 1920 can be assigned. In addition to small decorative objects, Lalique also designed church windows, altar figures and monumental objects such as the fountain on the Champs-Élysées , which was dismantled in 1958 and later disappeared. The most important works include the choir windows, tabernacles and the altar figures of the Notre Dame de Fidélité church in Douvres la Délivrandes ( Calvados ) and the windows of St. Nicaise in Reims and St. Matthew's Church on Jersey .
The company has had its headquarters at 11 rue Royale in Paris since 1935. In 1940 the factory was confiscated by the German occupying forces.
Lalique under the direction of Marc Lalique (1945 to 1977)
René's son Marc Lalique (1900–1977) joined the company in 1922 after training at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Both as a technician and as a designer, he contributed to the company's success. After Réne Lalique's death in 1945, he took over management of the company. Marc Lalique modernized the manufacture, completely dispensing with normal glass in favor of lead crystal in order to make the material heavier and more matt. He designed well-known objects such as the perfume bottle by L'Air du Temps for Nina Ricci and the cactus table. During this time the Lalique company caught up with the most famous crystal factories.
Lalique under the direction of Marie-Claude Lalique (1977 to 1994)
Marie-Claude Lalique (1935–2003), the daughter of Marc, took over the management of the company in 1977 after his death. She graduated from the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs de Paris . Under her leadership, Lalique continued the tradition and kept the collection up to date with her own designs. Marie-Claude Lalique paid attention to the creative tendencies and currents of her time. It brought color to the glass collection, which up until that time was mostly made of clear or satined glass. Her designs were preferably inspired by nature. At the same time, under her management, she was responsible for expanding the business area to other luxury goods: She introduced the perfume division into the company, again paying more attention to the jewelry collections and special edition items such as silk scarves and handbags .
Sold to Pochet in 1994
In 1994 the family business was sold to the French glass manufacturer Pochet. Pochet SA was founded in 1623 as Verreries du Courval and has been operating under the current name since 1928. It specializes in church windows and perfume bottles and has owned 9.4% of the shares in Lalique since the 1950s. In the late 1990s, economic difficulties, particularly in Asia and South America, resulted in financial losses. Pochet reacted to the falling sales figures with a worldwide expansion of the Lalique shops. At the beginning of the 21st century, Lalique had over 70 stores worldwide. In 2008, Pochet sold the then loss-making group to the Swiss company Lalique Group (formerly Art & Fragrance SA).
Lalique since 2008
Since the takeover by the Lalique Group (formerly Art & Fragrance SA) in February 2008, the company has been managed by the Swiss entrepreneur Silvio Denz , the main shareholder of the Lalique Group. As of January 2011, Lalique Group owns 95% of the capital. With investments in the production site in Wingen-sur-Moder and expansion of the product range, the company was able to generate a profit again for the first time in 2011. In 2012, 47% of Art & Fragrance sales of CHF 111 million were achieved with Lalique Crystal , 4% with Lalique jewelry and 15% with Lalique Parfums .
In September 2015, the company opened the Villa René Lalique - a luxury hotel and restaurant in Wingen-sur-Moder, Alsace. The villa was built in 1920 for René Lalique and since January 2016 it has been part of the international hotel association Relais & Châteaux.
In 2016 the Lalique Group achieved sales of EUR 123.6 million, the Lalique segment sales of EUR 81.0 million. Of the group sales, 29% were achieved with Lalique decorative objects, 20% with Lalique perfumes and room fragrances and 8% with interior design (remaining Share: jewelry, art, Villa René Lalique).
Product range
In addition to the new editions of traditional Lalique models, the company strives to set a further focus with contemporary designs. Together with various artists such as Jean Michel Jarre or the wine critic James Suckling, limited editions of loudspeakers and glass series were designed. In 2013, the tradition of manufacturing glass hood ornament was revived and the Flying B was designed for Bentley .
The company's perfumes are now sold by major cosmetic chains such as the Douglas perfumery . The limited editions, for example the Libellule , Lalique for Bentley , Fleur de Cristal or Hommage à l'homme series in exclusive Lalique flacons, some of which can cost several thousand euros, are mostly only available in special Lalique stores and perfumeries.
Museums
Numerous applied arts museums show designs by the company, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Corning Museum of Glass . Larger collections can be found in the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, in the Paris Museum Les Arts Décoratifs , in the Lalique Museum in Hakone , in the Jewelry Museum in Pforzheim and in the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg. Since July 1, 2011, the company itself has been running a museum in Wingen-sur-Moder . In addition to René Lalique's design drawings, pieces of jewelery, perfume bottles, chandeliers and glass sculptures from the company's early history, Marc Lalique's large-scale crystal objects are also on display in this museum.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lalique Group SA, Zurich (Ed.): Annual Report 2016 , Online PDF, 6.3 MB, p. 52
- ↑ Lalique Group SA, Zurich (ed.): Annual Report 2016, p. 58
- ↑ Museé Lalique: Vita René Lalique ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 12, 2014.
- ↑ Cristal bijoux.fr: Histoire Lalique ( Memento of the original of February 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , French, accessed February 12, 2014.
- ^ A b The Corning Museum of Glass: Dedicated to Glass of René Lalique , accessed February 12, 2014.
- ↑ Jean-Marc Ferrer (Ed.): Suzanne Lalique-Haviland, 1892−1989, le décor réinventé . Exhibition catalog Les Ardents éditeurs , Limoges 2012, ISBN 978-2-917032-37-4 .
- ^ Museé Lalique: Vita Suzanne Lalique ; accessed on February 12, 2014.
- ↑ a b Museé Lalique: Vita Marc Lalique ; accessed on February 12, 2014.
- ↑ a b c Marie-Claude Lalique, 67; Designer Led Art Glass Firm Founded by Grandfather ; Los Angeles Times , April 26, 2003.
- ↑ Internet site of Pochet SA ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 12, 2014.
- ↑ Hoover's Company Profiles: Pochet SA , accessed February 12, 2014.
- ↑ Lalique sort du tunnel. La Tribune, May 2, 2012, accessed February 13, 2014 (French).
- ↑ Art & Fragrance: Finanzreport 2012 ( Memento of the original from February 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 11, 2014
- ↑ Lalique Group SA, Zurich (Ed.): Annual Report 2016, p. 7
- ↑ Jean Michel Jarre: Aero-System one by Lalique ( Memento of the original from April 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 11, 2014.
- ↑ Lalique: 100points glass series by James Suckling , accessed on February 11, 2014.
- ↑ Lalique.com: Exclusive Perfume Bottles , accessed February 12, 2014.
- ↑ NZZ: From the dragonfly to crystal glass , accessed on February 12, 2014.
literature
- René Lalique: Art Nouveau jewelry 1890–1912. Skira, Geneva / Milan 2007, ISBN 978-88-6130-442-0 .
- Victor Arwas : Lalique: The glass of Rene Lalique. Rizzoli, ISBN 978-0-8478-0282-1 .
- Katherine Morrison McClinton: Introduction to Lalique glass. Wallace-Homestead Book, ISBN 978-0-87069-238-3 .
- Félix Marcilhac: Rene Lalique: Catalog raisonne de l'oeuvre de verre. Edition de l'Amateur, Paris 2004, ISBN 978-2-85917-510-8 .
- Yvonne Brunhammer: René Lalique: bijoux, verre. Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris (ed.). Union des arts décoratifs, Paris 1992, ISBN 978-2-7118-2512-7 .