The first edition of Cosmetic 360, which was held by the Cosmetic Valley cluster on 15-16 October 2015, welcomed 4,043 visitors, including 14% international visitors from 53 countries, according to the organizers.
Emmanuel Macron, the French of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs, inaugurated the trade show with Marc-Antoine Jamet, President of the Cosmetic Valley cluster, Jean-Luc Ansel, the Director General, and by the noses of Dior and Guerlain, Thierry Wasser and François Demachy. After the traditional ribbon cutting, the Minister visited several of the 150 stands, with a special interest in high-tech start-ups.
Promoting innovation
This first edition focused on SMEs and their innovations. The Cosmetic Valley has made the decision to back Open Innovation and use Cosmetic 360 as a platform for bringing together innovative project leaders (start-ups, laboratories, SMEs, microenterprises, etc.) and the Research and Innovation teams of the major names in the competitiveness cluster (Boots, Chanel, Johnson&Johnson, L’Oréal, LVMH Recherche, Puig, Shiseido) through pre-arranged meetings. About 250 applications have been submitted and 180 meetings have been held over the two days of the fair. According to the organisers, 44 projects (out the 250 which were presented) should lead to a cooperation project during the coming year.
Putting innovation under the spotlights has been the main concern of the organizers. "Our goal is not to make a copy of a catchall event such as Bologna or Shanghai but to promote the R&D projects conducted with the cosmetics industry,” expalined Marc-Antoine Jamet.
Exhibitors played the game and agreed to sum-up their fields of excellence in a few words, which then were written at the top of their stand, thus largely facilitating the visitors’ experience in this dense and eclectic event.
