Classical lines and fire-polished, ribbed glass have become Tom Ford hallmarks.

EuroStyle

Fresh Scent Bottles

Lively design ideas, exquisite materials and cutting edge techniques keep the contemporary scent bottle fresh, new and on message for the brand.

Written by Jonathan Ford, Pearlfisher

A scent bottle is integral to the experience of what’s inside. It is both a symbol of the promise therein and for the brand it represents. As such it has pushed the boundaries of design. This is an insight into how today’s designs use references, materials and techniques to keep the scent bottle beautiful, relevant and effective—the ultimate brand ambassador. And it starts with a walk along the counter of a perfumery. First stop, Prada.

The New Youth

Whether or not you like its caramel overtones, Prada Candy packs a punch. So too does its bottle. It is a tall, slender thing that combines an Art Deco inspired line with a color palette that shouts Warhol and Pop Art, bright and unapologetic. The result is standout and original.

Prada Candy packs a punch with its Art Deco inspired lines and a color palette that shouts Warhol and Pop Art.

Walk a little further along the counter and consider Marc Jacobs’ Lola and Oh Lola! With their pink or purple bottle, topped with a blousy, floral cap, they’re no shrinking violet. Or their forerunner, Daisy, more delicate and topped with, you guessed it, daisies. Or Valentino’s new, Valentina, whose Art Deco silhouette and floral triptych neckline nod to the design motifs of all of the above. All can’t help but make you smile.

Each illustrates how the scent bottle, when exposed to fresh design, new materials and manufacturing processes, can help reset the tone for a designer brand. They also represent the “new youth” in scent bottle design; the breath of fresh air that helps to keep a designer brand relevant and desirable. Up springs a new set of design codes (from molded floral stoppers to color blocking), which in turn help refresh the status quo. The result is unique, original, unexpected and desirable.

New techniques are key. We are seeing more sublimation or dye diffusion in fragrance bottle design. This technique enables photographic quality images to be wrapped around complex shapes. Also, new spray effects are being developed to have high contrasts—for example, high matte and ultra gloss. Enameling and sand blasting techniques from the luxury spirits market are being transferred to the fragrance arena, too.

The New Classics

Iconic is what every new scent worth its salt (or should I say, velvet-lined scent box) wants to be. And the scent bottle is key. For Tom Ford, in creating his signature fragrance line, this lay in classical lines (again, with a nod to Art Nouveau and the ’20s and ’30s) and fire-polished, ribbed glass, which has now become a TF hallmark. His latest, Violet Blonde, has a gold plaque debossed with the Tom Ford logo and the scent’s name riveted onto the ribbed bottle front. The gold plaque motif is repeated on the box, striking against its sumptuous purple. He has combined artisanal glasswork with contemporary, industrial riveting, which reinforces his bottles’ now iconic appeal. Micro embossing in the manufacturing tool enables very fine detail to be achieved providing a very engineered finish.

Tomas Meier is on a similar track with his first scent for Bottega Veneta.Note the intrecciato texture, sandblasted onto the base of its crystal flask: a reference to the leather weaving technique, particular to and created by the company in the late 1960s. Like Ford’s ribbed glass, it is a hallmark. Venetian glasswork and the traditional Italian carafe inspired the bottle. A brunito (burnished; a signature house color) cap and collar and a skin-colored leather ribbon clipped with a brunito butterfly are all BV signatures. The bottles’ design draws on already established brand codes to achieve the iconic, where Ford’s design sets them.

If record UK sales for the first scent from Jimmy Choo are a reliable benchmark, then it too is on track for modern classic status. Its bottle is a jewel-like, faceted globe inspired by Murano glass. It also brings to mind Icons, a collection of bejewelled shoes inspired by those from the archive. In so doing, it forms part of the brand’s luxury experience: a beautiful bottle or a beautiful shoe, to have and to hold. The first scent from Elie Saab is also multi-faceted. The Saab signature is his use of diaphanous fabrics that shimmer with the light, which thanks to its design, the bottle does, too. In so doing, it encapsulates the essence of Elie Saab. Both examples impart each bottle with subtle brand references, to help underpin a move into modern classic territory.

The New Niche

Marc Jacobs’ flowery caps broke creative ground and led to blooming fragrance sales.

Valentino’s Valentina features an Art Deco silhouette and floral triptych neckline.

When Coco Chanel first released No 5, there was nothing classic about it; both its scent and its bottle broke new territory. This was a time of elaborate Lalique and Baccarat confections. The bottle borrowed the simple, clean-cut shape of a man’s aftershave tonic, onto which she stuck a simple white Canson paper label stamped with black. This graphic clarity lends itself to a new scent category—let’s call it the new niche. It is typified by the house’s Les Exclusifs, a collection of over a dozen scents in identical bottles designed to attract a more discerning customer, looking for a scent outside the mainstream. Both Dior and Hermès have similarly exclusive, identically bottled niche collections, where the perfumer is given carte blanche to create original fragrances.

It’s worth noting a few contemporary design points. Both Chanel and Dior incorporate heavy, magnetic lids. The magnetic pull reinforces their weighty feel, which is associated with expense and luxury. It also emphasizes the “click” sound as the cap is put back on the bottle. This concept isn’t new in the language of the luxury item. The thought that goes into how a lipstick clicks as it is replaced is inspired by the sound of a sports car door closing. Indeed, bottles and caps are being designed with car engineering in mind—a quality feel when they slide closed and clicks when they locate, providing a feeling of reassurance and quality. Note too, the simplicity of the embossed, paper labels, which have been lovingly stuck onto each bottle by hand.

Chanel’s creative vision with No 5 has become a byword for classic.Today, creative vision or the wish to push the boundaries in scent bottle design has broken new ground. Thanks to the legacy of industrial design processes, which continue to push boundaries, practically anything is possible. This has given rise to conceptual, sculptural forms, which wouldn’t look out of place in an art collection, let alone on a woman’s dressing table. And for the brands they symbolize, they speak volumes.

The New Conceptualists

For Narciso Rodriguez’s Essence, the designer Ross Lovegrove replicated the sculptural form of rippling water right through to its glistening surface.

For Narciso Rodriguez’s second scent, Essence, the designer Ross Lovegrove replicated the sculptural form of rippling water right through to its glistening surface. This is a prime example for where industrial design processes embrace all areas of design.It made possible a visual metaphor for the scent’s translucent spirit.

Gaultier pioneered newness in the early ’90s with his male and female torso bottles. One of his latest, Kokorico for men, pushes the idea further. At first glance, it is a silhouette of the maestro’s head (drawing from an 18th century tradition). Turn the bottle and it’s the side view of a man’s torso. Turn to the other side and it’s chin, lips, nose and forehead, like an African sculpture. To achieve this precise shape, its designers used a 3D digital model. This enabled glassmakers Heinz and Pochet to achieve the precision required to create a bottle with such fine detail.

Of course to the purist, it is about the scent inside—without a good juice, there is nothing. For the British perfumer, Roja Dove, this accounts for the simplicity of his scent bottles: “very linear and very simple so nothing detracts from the natural beauty of the scent itself,” he says. Yet he allows for the finest embellishments, such as simple gold lettering on the side, following a more traditional technique of screen printing onto the glass and firing at high temperature so gold and glass fuse. The design of the bottle remains integral to the scent and the brand it represents.

About the Author

Jonathan Ford is a designer and Creative Partner of Pearlfisher – www.pearlfisher.com