Creative designer adds brands with Parisian touch

It all started in China, where Elie Papiernik and David Nitlich, the two founders of design company centdegres met for the first time in the 1980s. They built a strong friendship that quickly made them discover a shared vision for creation and design. Thus, their joint venture centdegres was born in the Far East, miles away from the company's current headquarters in Paris.

Despite the inception taking place more than 30 years ago, the creative passion is still driving the two founders. Together with 120 staff members - or "fashangers" as they like to call themselves because the pinyin of the company's Chinese name is fashang - around the world, the company kept growing to create premium brands.

The company's first project in China was to help redesign Herborist, a brand of personal and home care products provider Shanghai Jahwa United. It became a case study of revamping a brand 10 years ago, which reflected international cooperation in the Created in China.

For centdegres, its stage is the world, but China is a country in which the company has so much faith that it has made a presence in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Hong Kong with strong attachments to its local clients and partners.

Transforming brands and making them more audacious, desirable and therefore solid by recreating all of their expressions, visual identity, products, points of sale and others that have to do with their own style is the commitment of centdegres, as is shown in the company's catchphrase "Think Far Do Well", said centdegres China General Manager Matthieu Rochette-Schneider.

Designers at centdegres are thinkers - in particular, thinkers who act. These "creative activists" are distinguished by their co-creativity and believe that the only truly beautiful projects are those that are intelligently designed, crafted and created collectively with their clients, Schneider said.

The cooperative approach enables the company to export their French touch, by combining its expertise with the local culture of their clients.

Over the years, centdegres has acquired a subtle and agile understanding of Chinese culture and heritage. The combination of the Chinese background and the creative French expertise allows the company to meet accurately its clients' demands, and go further - revealing underrated elements in design, to connect emotionally with young and opinionated audiences: millennials and a whole country.

Last October, the exposure and success of China Red, a cosmetic line developed by beauty product provider Sephora and designed by centdegres in brand, packaging and promotion, "gave us a glimpse of what a collaboration of two French companies based in China can do", Schneider said.

And the result is "so powerful that it gave tremendous exposure to a national movement: c-beauty", which is a simple reflection of the vision centdegres pursues since its establishment in China, he said.

"It all goes back to celebrating China - its cultural elements, origins, color palette, ingredients, innovations, technologies, crafts, creations and aesthetics. A tribute to China's rich heritage, the Made in China campaign is now making Chinese - and centdegres - proud and giving new momentum to a generation aspiring to reveal a new allure and inspiring side of their country," he said.

"With more collaboration and co-creations, China will lead with agility and technological advances, bringing a new and modern way of looking at products, from skin care to food, and from perfumes to alcohol brands," Schneider stressed.

He added the company believes in the power of collaboration.

"The time is now, and this new era is happening in tandem with growing soft power, led by a deep understanding of cultural nuances."

(China Daily 11/05/2019 page7)