Q&A with Jon Dinapoli: How Beauty Found Him—Before He Did!

I wanted to do this Q&A with Jon Dinapoli, who is now the Founder & President of JMD Creative, because we first met nearly 20 years ago. It was after the launch of Gwen Stefani’s market-breaking Harajuku Lovers fragrance line, housed in collectible doll-like bottles. In his Coty office at the Empire State Building, he revealed an array of eye-catching “well-dressed” forms he had completed, as well as sketches and celebrity stories centered around visions of other bottle designs in progress.

What has been key to his enviable success?

Dinapoli says it’s about knowing how to combine commercial viability with great design, because “you need both to succeed.” 

Read on as we discuss some of the bottles he has created—and what it takes for a beauty brand to succeed.

Jamie Matusow: Can you talk about your background? How did you get into cosmetic packaging?

Jon Dinapoli: I went to Northeastern University in Boston and dual-majored in graphic design and photography. I’ve always loved architecture and product design, without formal training in either.

Beauty wasn’t even on my radar as a career. It found me before I found it—I have my mom to thank for that. She saw an ad in the newspaper, an actual printed newspaper, for Estée Lauder. She made me respond to it. I had never considered beauty—but that single nudge from her set the entire course of my career.

Catherine Walsh answered my inquiry and hired me on the spot. She’s told me over the years that she knew I didn’t have the experience, but I had “it,” so she took a chance on me. That one encounter changed my life. Catherine quickly became my mentor, and later, one of my closest friends. I credit her with shaping how I think about this business to this day.

Working under Catherine, I honed the thing our industry actually runs on—combining commercial viability with great design, because you need both to succeed. She taught me that the small details matter as much as the big concept, that you pay attention to both at all times, and that you always challenge yourself to innovate and think differently. I still carry that mantra into every project.

JM: What is it about fragrance packaging that you love most?

I’ve spent 25-plus years in the industry, first at Estée Lauder and then at Coty. So I learned how brands get built from the inside. That’s when I fell for packaging.

A bottle is where all the strategy, the story, and the emotion of a brand need to become an object you can hold. Getting that right is one of the hardest and most satisfying problems in design. To this day, when I see a product I designed sitting on a shelf, I get goosebumps. It never gets old.

“A bottle is where all the strategy, the story, and the emotion of a brand need to become one object you can hold.”
— Jon Dinapoli, Founder + President, JMD Creative

JM: When and how did you start your agency?

JD: I was about to turn 40, and I’d been at Coty for 14 years. I knew it was the right time to go out on my own. Sarah Jessica Parker and I had worked together through Coty for years, and around that time her fragrance license moved to another company. So I called her, told her about the agency I was building, and she said, ‘well, then I’ll be your first client!’ With that kind of support and partnership behind me, I knew I was onto something.

I founded JMD Creative in 2016, with SJP as that first client. I’d learned how the big houses work, Estée Lauder and Coty. I wanted to build something that kept the craft and taste of a boutique while still carrying a brand the whole way, from concept to packaging to campaign. That’s still the idea. We’re a design-first agency, but we weigh a brand’s commercial reality at every step. A beautiful bottle that doesn’t sell isn’t doing its job.

JM: What was the first package you designed? Can you discuss how your work has evolved since then & recent work with Clean and MCM?

JD: The first fragrance package I ever worked on was DKNY—the original tall, skinny, skyscraper bottles. I didn’t design the bottles, but I helped finalize them as we built out the launch and go-to-market materials.

What I can tell you is how far the work has come since. We started grounded in fragrance and packaging, and today we run full 360 creative direction: visual identity, packaging and industrial design, advertising and content, merchandising, and an in-house photo and video studio.

Clean Beauty Collective is a good example of the long game. We came on as their creative partners in 2017. We led a full aesthetic evolution across the master brand and its franchises, Clean Classic and Clean Reserve, without losing the core DNA that made the brand matter since 2003. Over the years, that partnership grew past fragrance into Clean Home, Hair & Body, and multiple fragrance innovations. We’ve helped evolve the whole portfolio while keeping a single, ownable visual language across every touchpoint.

MCM is the newer energy. Interparfums wanted something bold enough to stand next to the Backpack, which became an instant icon, but distinct enough to expand the brand’s world rather than repeat it. We found that what makes MCM ownable isn’t the hardware or the logo; it’s the personality.

We designed sculptural, collectible forms that feel elevated but approachable. Luxury with a wink. Then we extended it on social with playful fake out-of-home content to reveal the universe.

JM: You’ve worked on a wide array of celebrity fragrance bottles. Can you name some of your favorites? Is there one that especially stands out?

JD: I get asked this a lot, and it’s an impossible one to answer. I’ve been lucky to design for some of the most talented, world-renowned names in the business. But if one bottle stands out, it’s the Eilish fragrance.

Parlux, Billie Eilish’s fragrance partner, brought us in as their bottle design partner, and the creative brief pointed us toward the décolletage and the collarbone as the starting point for the form. We took that direction and created a gilded flacon in a warm amber-bronze, designed to be a treasured object you display, not hide in a drawer.

That first bottle won the 2022 FIFI Awards Consumer Fragrance Choice, and it led to more design work across the franchise, including Your Turn. We built Your Turn’s form around the shape of a die. It went on to win a 2026 Fragrance Foundation Award along with a 2025 Silver Pentaward for its design.

Sabrina Carpenter is another one I love, for a completely different reason. She came to us to launch her very first fragrance. The whole thing was built around her love of sweets, so we focused on what she adores most—chocolate.

The bottle is shaped like a chocolate bar, which is playful and instantly hers. Then we carried that whimsy all the way through, building a nostalgic candy-store world dipped in pink, a homage to Willy Wonka, with life-sized candy and lollipops. Sabrina ran the shop with that mix of sweet and a little bit sexy that’s so her. It started with Sweet Tooth and grew into a full collection with Scent Beauty.

My longest and most personal relationship has been with Sarah Jessica Parker, almost 20 years now, which tells you something about how these partnerships last when the trust is there. This year we launched a brand-new pillar collection with her, and we continue to partner on all things fragrance. She’s a true partner and a visionary, and working with her has been one of the highlights of my career.

Our Q&A with Jon Dinapoli continues as we discuss creative inspiration, how the fragrance industry has changed, and more. Read on.

JM: Can you explain your design & development process—from concept to shelf? How do you find inspiration?

JD: The Eilish bottle is a great example. It started with the creative brief from Parlux, which centered the design on the décolletage and the collarbone, and that became the north star for the form. From there, it’s a lot of back-and-forth on proportion, silhouette, and finish, chasing an amber-bronze that reads as gilded and treasured rather than costume.

Then comes the part that makes or breaks it. We hired a sculptor and built the model out of clay, and with Covid lockdown in full effect, each round of review meant physically shipping that model back and forth as we refined it through Parlux’s approval process.

Once the design was signed off, we did a 3D scan of the clay model. From there, we built the CAD files. It was a truly artistic project, the kind where craftsmanship and commerciality meet at exactly the right crossroad.

For most of the brands I work with, inspiration comes from the person or the brand, not from a mood board of other packaging. On the Eilish bottle, the brief pointed us to the human form, and our challenge was to translate that into a shape that could feel personal to anyone. With MCM it was the brand’s personality and that wink of humor. The best answers are usually already there in the brief and the brand. Our job is to find them and make them physical.

JM: What was your favorite experience working with a celebrity?

JD: Working with Madonna is right at the top. Sitting in her living room, talking through creative and bottle design, was a true pinch-me moment. When you grow up with someone who is that iconic—woven into the culture—and then you’re across from her working on her fragrance, it reminds you of how lucky you are to get to do this for a living.

JM: What is your most recent packaging project?

JD: The freshest thing we’ve been working on is the Clean Body Mists, and it’s a favorite. It’s an innovative, novelty-driven design built around a popsicle. That single idea creates a whole world for the brand to explore and express, which is exactly the kind of project we love, where one joyful concept gives you room to build something much bigger than a bottle.

JM: You are best known for designing fragrance bottles—but do you only work with fragrance brands?

JD: No. Fragrance is our heritage and probably what we’re best known for, but JMD is a full creative agency. We work across beauty, wellness, and lifestyle, and we handle brand strategy, visual and verbal identity, advertising and content, social, web, merchandising, and packaging and industrial design.

Fragrance taught us a discipline that carries everywhere: in a bottle, every millimeter and every finish matters, because there’s nowhere to hide. We bring that same standard to whatever category a brand lives in.

JM: Any thoughts on the fragrance industry today—and how it has changed?

JD: A few things are happening at once. Fragrance has become collectible in a way it never used to be. People want a bottle they display, not one they hide in a drawer, so the object itself has to earn its place at home.

Celebrity and artist fragrances have grown up, too. What used to be treated as a novelty is now real brand-building, with the best of it showing genuine point of view and staying power.

Sustainability has moved from a talking point to table stakes, something you’re expected to get right rather than something you brag about.

And social has changed the job of the bottle entirely. A design has to perform on a screen, in a video, in someone’s post, long before anyone ever smells the juice.

Put it all together, and the bar is simply higher. A bottle must be beautiful, ownable, responsible, and camera-ready, all at once.

“We design for the hand and the feel at the same time.” 
— Jon Dinapoli, Founder + President, JMD Creative

JM: What is different about product design today from when you started?

JD: The biggest change is that a package now has to perform on a screen before it ever performs in a store. When I started, the bottle’s job was to look right on a shelf and feel right in the hand. That still matters, but now the same design has to hold up as a thumbnail, in a fifteen-second video, in someone’s unboxing post.

We design for the hand and the feel simultaneously. That’s why we now build content and fake out-of-home work right alongside the packaging, as we did for MCM. The object and the story it tells online are one job, not two.

JM: Any news on the Pentawards?

JD: Your Turn by Billie Eilish and DKNY 24/7 both earned a 2025 Silver Pentaward for their design — a distinction that means a lot to us, since Pentawards judges packaging and design purely on their own merits, nothing else.

This year, the MCM Fragrance Collection and Clean Collection Hair & Body Mists were both shortlisted for a Pentaward.

JM: What’s next? Is there anything else you can add about any upcoming goals?

JD: We’re at an exciting inflection point. Beauty will always be our core. It’s who we are, but we’re expanding into categories that sit right next to it, close cousins—CPG, spirits, and wellness. The same thinking about story, craft, and shelf presence carries straight over.

We’ve also grown what we can do under one roof. We’ve added strategy and marketing, while building an internal sales team. Together, these will help us shape the agency’s next chapter.

The goal is the same as it’s always been—to carry a brand the whole way and do it with taste.

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