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: 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

Optical Scentsibilities: the Hug

What better way to show affection, protectiveness and love than a hug? In that spirit, the pose of a woman hugging a perfume bottle has been used a lot in advertising and it is our study subject for today.

A hug can be maternal and protective of a precious entity, signifying tenderness. As in Fidji by Guy Laroche.


And the Mother and Child by G.Klimt.



A hug can also signify daydreaming, and in it the freedom to be what one trully is. As in Caron's tender and contemplative Fleur de Rocaille.



Or in this art print in 60s style.



A hug can also be slightly provocative, sensually tantalising and promising escapades of an amorous sort. As in this ad of Senso by Ungaro featuring Nastassja Kinski from the 1980s.

Or in this famous illustration by Mel Ramos Hunts for the Best (1981), where the model suggestivelly embraces the topmost of the ketchup bottle.

Additionaly there is the semi-hug, a way of displaying the fragrance bottle than actually bringing it close to one's bosom, which can mean that it is prized loot; like in this ad for Covet by Sarah Jessica Parker. If you had followed Perfume Shrine, you will remember the wonderfully witty commercial for the scent, directed by J.P Goude.

It can also signify contemplation of the value of what its true essence means to you, like once again in the exotic shores of Fidji. The perfume becomes you, as the tagline said: "Every woman is an isle. Fidji is her perfume".

It can be your true essence itself, the magical elixir that transforms the woman into a plummed bird such as the Coco ads with Vanessa Paradis as a paradise bird (ingenious). Thus hugging the bottle is embracing the last frontier of imagination...



And finally, when something is as iconic and a mythos of its own, like Chanel No.5 is, it simply demands to be carried on the bosom as the insignia of excellence and the true arbiter of taste. Gigantic in its message as well as its physical size, it becomes bigger than life, fit to be hugged by only another living myth: Catherine Deneuve.

Which one is your favourite hug?

Pics from okadi, parfumdepub, ebay, allposters.com and art.com

Optical scentsibilities: the Art of Composition

One of the first things that one learns at Art School is the mastery which is required in placing your subject in a composition that focuses on what you want to focus on and hinting at subtle references. The art of composition is not easy, alas. This is often the downfall of many advertising campaigns which opt for a too "loaded" approach or one that misses the target and diverts the eye from the focal point.
And then some others do brilliantly exactly thanks to their arresting placement of elements on paper. Like this advertisement for Paco Rabanne cologne for men from the late 70s. In a very clever composition it puts all the emphasis, through the use of light and shadow, on the central subject: the man in the background. The fact that he is a glamour photographer is hinted at by the equipment seen in shadow on the foreground and the two are joined by the ray of light escaping from the room that is seen at the back, while the man is apparently talking on the phone, casually -as hinted by his hand in his pocket- disheveled; perhaps arranging a tryst with a loved one. The message is smartly displayed: Paco Rabanne for Men is meant for men who don't have to prove anything and it challenges vision to be used in alternative ways: maybe through the aiding lens of olfaction, for a change.



The composition merits its own lineage being revealed. It is none other, in my opinion, than this classic of classics: Las Meninas by Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez from 1656. Las Meninas means "maids of honour" in Spanish. The painting is a depiction of the royal family of Phillip IV of Spain and its entourage, in which the Infanta Margarita (the royal child-daughter) is posing at the center with her maids, her chaperone and two dwarfs. But in reality it is more a depiction of the shadowy silhouette standing at the doorway, seen through the lit "window" at the background that draws the eye upwards and through the painting. Again the trail of light travels from the back to the foreground, creating the tie that binds the composition into a whole. In the words of Silvio Gaggi, the painting is presented as "a simple box that could be divided into a perspective grid with a single vanishing point".
The iconic status of the painting is evident even more if we consider that Pablo Picasso as well as Salvator Dali interpreted the composition in studies of their own. Here is one of them by Picasso from 1957.
If one is interested in a more analytical approach of the painting, I would advise turning to Michel Foucault's Les mots et les choses ("The order of things", New York, Random House 1970), in which he devotes the opening chapter to this.

A innovative approach that has had an unforeseen lineage in perfume advertising.




Pic of Paco Rabanne courtesy of parfumdepub.
Las Meninas courtesy of allposters.com

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: 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: 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