Estée Lauder's Fragrances at the Cannes Film Festival

Recently, during this year's Cannes Film Festival, Estée Lauder's fragrance brand Kilian Paris hosted a beach club event at the Carlton Cannes Hotel.

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Kilian Paris also set up a pop up bar in the lobby of the hotel, with its stand featuring main fragrances and iconic perfumes on display and available for sale.

Kilian Paris at the Cannes Film Festival

The Kilian Paris website shows that this year, Kilian Paris has teamed up with many celebrities, influencers and models at the Cannes Film Festival, such as influencers CARINA ZAVLINE wearing Kilian Paris' Le Rouge Parfum Heaven Rouge, actress ASALLAH KAMEL wearing Rolling in Love, and Youtube celebrities NOOR DE GROOT wore Le Rouge Parfum Nude in Red lipstick on the red carpet at Cannes.

(Credit: from Kilian Paris official website)

Kilian Paris also hosted a beach club event at the Carlton Cannes Hotel for the fashion industry's biggest names participating in the festival, including film director Yi Zhou, hair stylist John Nollet, make-up artist Sir John, fashion photographer Ellen Von Unwerth, model Eugenia Kuzmina, Jourdan Dunn, Jordan Barrett, Poppy Delevingne, Shanina Shaik and many more. Several participants also posted videos of their participation in the event on TikTok to promote Kilian Paris, and the hashtag #kilian×cannes has now been viewed 48,000 times on TikTok.

For the occasion, Kilian Paris has called on world-class mixologist performers to perform a bartending show, while serving brand's For the occasion, Kilian Paris has called on world-class mixologist performers to perform a bartending show, while serving the brand's fragrances inspired cocktails along the seafront.

In the first bar, named "Angels' Share" for the brand's iconic fragrance, it was fire-eaters that The second bar, also named for a fragrance, "Love, don't be shy", had a fountain for self-service. The third bar, dedicated to the brand's Blue Moon Ginger Dash scent, featured a dry ice show with blue neon lights And the final bar was an ode to the "Can't Stop Loving You," house fragrance.

As far as music is concerned, DJ Nina Urgell was entrusted to get people on the dance floor.

A fragrance brand with wine note

Kilian Paris is a niche salon fragrance brand from France, whose founder, Kilian Hennessy, was born in the LVMH group, one of France's most distinguished wine dynasties. He combines French perfumery expertise with the Hennessy family's heritage in cognac making.

According to reports, Kilian Hennessy worked for a number of major brands such as Christian Dior and Giorgio Armani for over ten years after graduating in order to learn the craft of fragrance, and founded the luxury fragrance brand Kilian Paris in 2007. 2016 saw beauty giant Estee Lauder acquire Kilian Paris.

CHAILEEDO found that most of Kilian Paris' fragrances contain wine notes, which is inseparable from the experience of its founder Kilian Hennessy, who once said, "All our fragrances have inspired cocktails!"

(Credit: three perfumes of Kilian Paris)

When talking about making fragrance Kilian Hennessysaid：“When you think about a perfume, the melody, the accord, the creativity at the core of what makes a perfume unique is 3-7 ingredients. Everything is built on those 3-7 ingredients and how to make it long lasting. I feel that perfume making is closer to cooking because there are many ingredients available. One is solid and one is liquid and I understand how one is inclined to think that perfume-making is closer to making cognac. But, the process is close to a chef.

It is reported that Kilian Paris sells perfumes, candles and other accessories. When it was acquired by Estee Lauder, it had about $25 million in net sales, according to industry sources. The company did not divulge a purchase price, but industry sources estimated the price could have been as high as $80 million.

“Kilian Hennessy’s innate passion for luxury and fragrance influences every aspect of By Kilian,” said John Demsey, Estée Lauder group president. “As a brand builder, Kilian has done an incredible job of expressing his…olfactive and visual philosophy to his enthusiastic global fan base. We see a bright future for this brand, building on what Kilian and his talented team have already accomplished — and we can’t wait to get to work.”

"Estée Lauder understands By Kilian's philosophy of handing back to perfumery the sophisticated reputation it enjoyed at the start of the XXth century. The group is also endowed with the resources to help By Kilian continue to grow strategically across categories, regions and distribution channels," explained Kilian Hennessy.

While the Chinese perfume market is already showing high growth rates by 2020, capital is also starting to favour niche fragrances by 2020. CHAILEEDO data showed that from 2017 to 2020, the retail sales of China's perfume market increased from 6.4 billion yuan ($904 million) to 10.9 billion yuan ($1.5 billion), an increase of 70%. And, according to incomplete statistics, eight Chinese niche fragrance brands have completed 11 rounds of funding in 2020 and 2021 alone.

Following the acquisition, Kilian Paris, a niche fragrance brand, also entered the growing Chinese market for niche fragrances with the official announcement in May 2020.

Since then, Kilian Paris' impressive performance has also contributed to some of the results of Estée Lauder's fragrance division. According to Estée Lauder's financial reports in Q2 of FY2021, fragrance category revenue rose 6% to $618 million, with new brands Kilian Paris and Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle contributing to the growth.

And, Kilian Paris is also determined to make a push into the make-up segment. In April 2023, Kilian Paris appointed Sir John, celebrity makeup artist, as Makeup Creative Director. Kilian Paris said that Sir John and founder Kilian Hennessy are collaborating on plans to redesign the Le Rouge Parfum scented lipstick in refillable packaging, with the first elements set to debut in autumn 2024.

(Credit: from Kilian Paris)

Kilian Paris is also reportedly presenting its recently launched new scented lipstick collection at the Cannes Film Festival, which was created by Sir John, the recently appointed make-up creative at Kilian Paris.

(Credit: Kilian Paris Love don't be shy)

Beauty "big names" at Cannes

In addition to Kilian Paris, beauty giants such as L'Oréal, Coty and Dior were also present at Cannes.

Although Cannes is known for its most valuable awards in the film industry, it is often the make-up of the stars on the red carpet that is the focus of attention. The Cannes Film Festival is therefore also seen as a marketing for beauty brands to effectively be popular and create a premium brand image. It has always been a battleground for brands to compete for media and consumer attention.

Henri Pinault, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Kering, has stated that The Cannes red carpet is like another catwalk. If movie celebrities can walk the red carpet wearing Kering's brands, it's as effective as a hard-copy placement and the sponsorship investment is definitely worth it."

L'Oréal invited Chinese stars Gong Li, Zhu Yilong, Gong Jun and Zhong Chuxi, and international stars Helen Mirren, Elle Fanning, Kate Winslet, Eva Longoria, Aishwarya Rai, Gemma Chan and Viola Davis to participate the red carpet runway at the Cannes Film Festival. And, this year, most of the Cannes makeup looks were still created by L'Oréal. Val Garland, L'Oréal's Global Makeup Director, led 30 international makeup artists in the co-creation of the looks.

(Credit: from L'Oreal Paris)

Another beauty giant, Coty, made a big splash at Cannes. Coty used the eve of the festival to host a gala launch event at Villa Botanica for the Orveda brand's all-in-one concentrated serum and to celebrate Infinement Coty Paris, which the company calls "the future of niche fragrances". And, just before the Cannes Film Festival, Coty announced the launch of the Coty Protopia programme, which aims to support bold and creative expressions of beauty.

(Credit: from Coty)

Moreover, Dior created a Dior Beauty Salon to provide an exclusive beauty experience for the attendees. Located on the roof of the JW Marriott Hotel, the salon includes a dressing room, spa room and nail bar. Meanwhile, the Dior Salon is considered to be the most exclusive place in Cannes and one of the best beauty suites to date.

More Chinese brands have also started to venture into Cannes in many forms, with Chinese beauty Peley Group’s make-up brand UNNY inviting Jiang Mengjie to perform on the red carpet in Cannes with shining.

International beauty brands have in recent years been using a variety of marketing ways to promote their campaigns at film festivals, and crossover marketing has been effective. Beauty brands such as Kilian Paris are trying to gain more attention and potential customers through film festivals.