Optical Scentsibilities: bottle design

Art apparently not only imitates life, but art itself as well! Here today is photographic evidence of design borrowing concerning perfume bottles.

The most classic example is of course the couturier's dummy by Schiaparelli for her legendary Shocking.

The torso has a seamstress's tape on the neck and a head of flowers. Very 30s.
While Gaultier decided to give it a corset in his take on Jean Paul Gaultier Classique. Very 90s...

Weird shapes and precarious balances also inspire. Hermes did this tipsy bottle that sits on an angle first for Eau de Merveilles and then for Elixir de Merveilles (depicted).

Missoni liked the idea and borrowed the almost on the side, ready to fall but not quite balance on their eponymous scent and later on their Aqua by Missoni.
Youth Dew is a classic by Lauder: their first fragrance. Its shape above (coming from a later design on the original bottle) is echoed though in another perfume bottle.

Madeleine Vionnet, as a couturier, made sure she had a thimble-shaped cap on her fragrance. The rest is quite similar. The sketchy filigree design by Jane Birkin's hand proved successful for the ultra pared-down, functional bottle of Miller Harris L'air de Rien.

Lostmarch opted for a slightly more nostaligic design on theirs, lifting the sparse bottle a bit. Laan-Ael it is. L'artisan Parfumeur designed new caps for all their bottles recently (Why? Completely redundant, they were perfect anyway ~OK, perhaps they needed to inject a shot of masculinity to the image of their unisex fragrances, I am hypothesizing).
Yves Saint Laurent followed with their cap for L'Homme.

Perles de Lalique has one of the most arresting bottles in their extrait de parfum, as you can see.

Until one sees the vintage parfum bottle for Arpege by Lanvin that is.... Sisley came out with a moon-cap for their Soir de Lune. After all lune does mean moon in French.
But apparently Songes, which means dreams, is also tied to moon imagery, according to Annick Goutal. Good night, sleep tight...

Pics from osmoz, amazon, artcover, doctissimo.fr, scentedsalamander blog (for soir de lune), parfumflacons, flickr, official Miller Harris and Schiaparelli sites.

Optical Scentsibilities: bottle design, part 2

Bottles get fairly often copied, er...*cough, cough*..."inspired" by other bottles it seems. After all we highlighted some on a previous post. Maybe the bottle designers/sculptors are just a handful (which they are, actually)and the rights for use are rather...liquid.

Witness these latest examples:



The scarce Japanese Y perfume has an elegant bottle that seems like a drop. Or a figurative swan's neck made of crystal, if you contort to a mental pretzel position for a bit.

Roughly evoking the similar bottle of bestseller Cashmere Mist by Donna Karan.
Jennifer Lopez is full of energy, producing not only twins and singing albums, but also fragrances to fill malls across America. Her latest is Deseo (desire in Spanish), which takes a novel approach of an irregular shape, bluish colour (not the usual choice for a passionate fragrance) and an offbeat cap.
Somehow I think we have seen this idea executed more competently in L by Lolita Lempicka. Another passion-potion in a blue-ish, irregularly shaped, vaguely heart-like bottle.

Balmain has Ambre Gris displayed everywhere in France. It just now made it to some online stores worldwide. Striking and hefty bottle, isn't it, with its big, sherical cap!


And guess who had made a similar bottle looooong ago? Coty for his seminar L'Origan.

Parfumerie Générale goes the way of niche: austere sturdy bottles, uniform design throughout the line, empasis on what's inside rather than frills, serious approach, emblematic labels.

Imagine one's surpise to find somethig similar enrobing the comparatively lowly Denim by Elidda Gibbs!

Then of course there is jewellers's brand Van Cleef & Arpels, who have issued many fragrances in jewel-like bottles. Féerie is their latest in an elaborate crystal flacon with silvery stems, shaped like a ripe fig.

If only Pierre Dinand hadn't already designed the lovely fig limited edition bottle for L'artisan Parfumeur's Premier Figuier...

Jessica Simpson tries hard with all the desperation of a has-been. So hard that she actually sanctions a quite pretty and expensive-looking bottle for her new perfume, Fancy (fancy that!)
Then again her target audience is 15-35 years old (nothing wrong with the upper end of the margin, plenty of wrong with the bottom end of it though: how could a modern 15-year-old get away in her entourage with anything elegant without atracting ridicule? To be answered in the hazy distant future).


Eerily reminiscent of the limited editions for the bell jars of the Serge Lutens fragrances for Le Palais Royal, like this one for Mandarine Mandarin.
Now cut it out, Jessica, please! This isn't funny!!

Pics via aedes, artcover, ausliebezumduft, ambregris, autour de serge, scentaddicts, luckyscent, parfumflacons.

Optical scentsibilities: the allure of the sofa

Many times a simple object holds a fascination beyond its functionality. Like sofas... They are lovely to cushion our derriere, but have we paused to think how they also suggest an atmosphere of nonchalance that is eminently befitting perfume images?
Not surprisingly the thought has crossed the minds of perfume photographers and illustrators for a long time. For Coco, the baroque oriental by Chanel an equally decorative sofa from the appartment of Coco Chanel on Rue Cambon has been selected to hold the porcelain curves of model Shalom Harlow.



While for Christian Dior it was Dioressence and illustrator Rene Gruau that took the sofa into the realm of the decadent and sybaritic. One can almost feel the feline look in the eye of the woman in the ad, as her face is partially masked by the big, colourful cushions resting atop a schematic sofa.

But there also less classical examples of perfumes that use the reclining on a sofa pose to very good effect....
Isabella by Isabella Rossellini, a warm powdery floriental


Still by Jennifer Lopez, a limpid floral


Byzance by Rochas, a warm and deep oriental

Perhaps one could trace this tendency way back to venues other than perfume. To art and its effect on the collective subconsious that tends to find similarities and recall familiar images, even if not consiously perceptive.
After the ball by Margaret Dyer uses an impressionistic palette and brushstroke to show the contemplation of the heroine, hand under chin, reminiscing about the highlights of the event; such a formal occassion should have demanded her best perfume, surely.


Natasha Gellman by Diego Rivera was painted in 1943 and is full of the usual clear, bright palette of Rivera in almost an illustration which depicts a glamorous lady of the times reclining on a sofa amidst white blossoms which seem to emit their own rich aroma.



But of course the archetype is probably Madame de Pompadour by Francois Bouchet, painted in 1757 and rounding off the theme of contemplation, elegance and languor, as expressed in the trails of beautiful essences that must have adorned her lavish clothes.





Pics of ads from parfumdepub and okadi. Paintings: After the ball by Margaret Dyer, Natasha Gellman by Diego Rivera and Madame de Pompadour by Francois Bouchet. Courtesy of art.com, allposters.com and madamedepompadour.com

Optical Scentsibilities: Memento Mori

Dior Poison "memento mori" ad, "all is vanity"

How could the idea of mortality be tied to perfume? There seems to exist a plethora of references to Eros and Thanatos in scented matters. From the ancient practice of accompanying the dead to their resting place with aromatic incense and the fragrant burials in Egypt's pyramids to the annointing of the body for weddings in India with comparable scented essences, fragrance holds a key to matters of mortality. Rituals using it aim either to somehow "defeat" it (marriage and therefore procreation) or to pay their respects to the unavoidable.
But it is rare that a perfume company uses images of death to advertise their products; in this case Poison by Christian Dior.

You don't get what I am talking about? Squint. Now look again with your vampire eyes...The image of a skull is looking back at you through the mirror, the bottles and the torso of the woman sitting in front of her dresser. See?

Images of skulls abound in art and are indeed a premium means of delivering meanings that have to do with the subconcious. From the skull and bones flag of the pirate ship to more sophisticated paradigms, like this one from surrealist Salvador Dali, skulls are there to remind us that nothing lasts forever and the inevetability of death is the only centainty in life.
Of course Dali chose to depict it through naked women forming the parts of the skull, which is an allusion to the other half of the equlibrium of Eros and Thanatos. The regeneristic power of sexual desire and copulation is man's only means of transcedenting death. This of course lies at the root of ancient mysteries and rituals, such as the Orphic or Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece.

During the Middle Ages, at a time when general lack of education swerved the emphasis of ecclesiastical catechy into iconography rather than scripture, images of horrible monstrosity became almost normal in the abodes of the holy. One only has to take a look at the gargoyles of late-Gothic churches across Europe to ascertain this. In this environment the notion of Memento Mori flourished; a typically simple depiction of a skull making an appearence somewhere along a painting, a psalm book, or a tapestry.

The habit persisted through later years and this painting of Jean de Dinteville (depicted at left) by Holbein is testament to it. If you look at it from the left and squint enough, you see that at the bottom of it there is an elongated form of something that does not seem like anything much, but in fact is a symbolic skull.

And how would this culminate in the above Dior Poison advertisement? Simple: the name Poison lends itself to imagery of Thanatos, through its connotations of its meaning and the fairy tale poisoned apple like its bottle shape suggests. Apple, a fruit full of its own connotations of sin and corruption!
Perhaps the advertisers want us to remember that just as their perfume can symbolically be lethal (and in copious amounts I am sure it can be!), it can also put a spin into the other half of the eternal duo: Eros.

Pics from moiillusions.com and nationalgallery.org.uk. Thanks to Sillage for bringing the initial Poison ad to my attention

Optical Scentsibilities: Bras de Fer

Le Male by Jean Paul Gaultier has always had some tongue in cheek imagery for its presentation. And it stuck with audiences, if only for its unapologetic exploitation of the homosexual connotation of sailors, alongside its sweet lavender-ladden scent. The issue is well documented, in fact, as attests this book devoted to it. There has even been an exhibition about gay life on the high seas. In times when sea travel was taking forever, it was to be expected.
In one such advertisement stylized pouty sailors cross their arms in a bras de fer that has them glistening their muscles in a nod to 90s gay culture. Or is this a cliché?

Whatever it is, it's certainly not that original, as far as perfume advertisments go. The bras de fer idea had been already tentatively explored in Eau Folle by Laroche print advertisements as far back as 1970. Only the couple is not indicative of a homosexual rapport, here using a man and a woman. And the mood is much less mock-serious or pouty, but more exuberant, fun and casually flirty.
Now, this curious little hat does remind me of a cook on a ship! But maybe that's just my twisted imagination...

Pics from parfumdepub

Optical Scentsibilities: back to back

A naked feminine back can be more provocative than the most plunging decolleté. It implies a state of deshabillé that is not par for the course the way cleavage usually is with standard clothing and it draws men nearer, almost unconsciously and with a Plavlovian reflex to touch, going from the visual to tactile in an all too brief second.
It is exactly this imagery that has surfaced in perfume advertising as well as art.


From Pierre Cardin's Paradoxe from 1983 with its stylisized lines...



...to the luxurious, curvy decadence of Agent Provocateur with its saffron-rose chypriness.



The beauty of Jules Joseph Lefebvre's Odalisque from 1874 is at the heart of this seductive back nudity.



Modigliani also was inspired by it, using his characteristic style of brushwork in an aquarelle from the beginning of the 20th century.



And all can be traced back to La Grande Odalisque by Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1814). A classic portrait of distorted human proportion (look carefully at the back and limps and you will know) that accounts for true beauty.
Comissioned by Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples and sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, La Grande Odalisque was intended to keep company to another nude by Ingres which she owned: Sleeping Woman, Nude.
Influential even to the point that it inspires photographers to shoot today's actresses, such as this one above with Julianne Moore by Michael Tompson in 2003 (American Photograph magazine). Which one is sexier?

Perfection! It's back.

Pics from imagesdesparfums, parfumdepub, wikipedia and in.gr