Chapter 4_Part3 - marc rosen associates

A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
THE 1960s
Jacqueline Kennedy brought chic French style to the public
stage, and even conquered Paris with her elegance. Fifties
froufrou was replaced by strict simplicity. It was, alas, the last
time that the lady-like and the glamorous coincided. The
perfumes of the early ’60s reflected this classic French stylishness.
But the mood changed radically in the later ’60s as the English
“youthquake,” along with frustration with the Vietnam War
brought a wave of rebellion against bourgeois values in general.
DIORLING, a Dior fragrance introduced in 1963, is contained
in a graceful, bulb-shaped Baccarat bottle with a slender neck
that somewhat resembles a Persian rosewater sprinkler. The
base is cradled in a classical leaf motif of gilt bronze; the stopper
is a golden rosebud.This fantastic object has all the elegance of
a classical eighteenth-century decanter, but with a subtle A
Thousand and One Nights sensuality.
NORELL in 1968 was called the first American designer
fragrance. Norman Norell, who had been born in Indiana,
studied and later taught fashion design at Pratt in New York.
His meticulous clothing was considered equal to that of the
French couturiers, and he had many of the same clients. His
work was prized for its restraint and clean lines. This stunningly
chic bottle has similar virtues. A low, sharply facetted rectangle
of clear glass, it bears the six letters of the designer’s name in
tall, narrow capitals. The stopper, like an exclamation point,
contrasts nicely with the horizontal bottle.
OPPOSITE PAGE: DIORLING, DIOR, 1963. BACCARAT.
LEFT: NORELL, NORELL, 1968.
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A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
Guy Laroche presented FIDJI in 1966.The name evokes a
South Sea idyll, but the bottle designed by Serge Mansau, is
superbly modern rather than exotic.The flat rectangular body
has sloping shoulders, its shape echoed and inverted by the
large clear glass stopper. A strong black cord circles the neck,
defining the two shapes, then encircles the body and stopper
providing a stark contrast with the clear glass.
Guerlain alluded to a story of disenchanted love by the hugely
popular French novelist Françoise Sagan when it named a new
fragrance CHAMADE in 1969. The word “chamade” refers to
the sound of drums beaten to announce a defeat in war. In
this case, it is a surrender to love. The scent was created by
Jean-Paul Guerlain, son of Jacques. The graceful shell or leafshaped bottle, designed by Robert Granai, with its tall pointed
stopper is marked with concentric striations that repeat the
form, almost reverberating like sound waves.
scanning to extend background
and straighten
ABOVE: FIDJI, GUY LAROCHE, 1966.
DESIGNED BY SERGE MANSAU.
OPPOSITE PAGE: CHAMADE, GUERLAIN, 1969.
DESIGNED BY ROBERT GRANAI & RAYMOND GUERLAIN.
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A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
THE 1970s
1968 had brought upheaval to French society that was not
unrelated to the protest movements in the United States. In the
aftermath, glamour was not absent, but it took a very different
turn. In fashion,Yves Saint Laurent led the pack. His vision,
too, was of great elegance, but it had an edge of sexiness and
danger. He put a woman in a man’s suit, but there was a
transparent blouse under her smoking jacket. Catherine
Deneuve in Belle du Jour epitomized that troubling conjunction
of the proper and the perverse. Saint Laurent’s love of strong
colors, often in daring, clashing combinations, gave many of his
collections an air of quasi-Oriental fantasy similar to the Ballets
Russes-inspired fashions of Poiret. Disco became the rage, and,
in New York, celebrities flocked to Studio 54. Andy Warhol,
with his tawdry Super Stars, parodied the idea of glamour and
fame while reveling in it.
Caron presented INFINI in 1970, reusing the name of a perfume
from 1912. This has been described as a crisp green floral scent,
and the bottle had a sharp geometric silhouette. Both the wonderfully angular bottle and stopper are irregular hexagons with open
centers. A thick red cord binds the two parts of this fascinating
sculptural object, which makes clever use of negative space.
The name of the Molyneux fragrance VIVRE (to live) seemed
to announce the message of the ’70s when it was introduced in
1971. The design interprets the name itself with its two Vs
written in large capitals across the front. The top of bottle and
the bottom of the flat glass stopper are straight parallel lines
separated by a cylindrical metal neck. Zig-zags across the top
of the large stopper remind us of the peaks and valleys traced
by the needle of an EKG, the rhythm of life itself. The lower
edge of the bottle repeats this irregular, jagged pattern.
LEFT: VIVRE, MOLYNEUX, 1971.
OPPOSITE PAGE: INFINI, CARON, 1970.
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
Halston was the designer of the moment in ’70s New York. In 1975, he asked the
terribly chic Italian jewelry designer, Elsa Peretti, to create the bottle for
HALSTON, his signature women’s scent. Peretti was celebrated for her free-form,
sculptural jewelry and tableware marketed by Tiffany’s. She gave the bottle an
organic, asymmetrical teardrop form. It was nothing like any commercial perfume
bottles seen until then. To me, it looks like an artifact dug up by archeologists
from an Etruscan tomb. And it married perfectly with Halston’s own neo-classical
style in which adornment ceded the field to fluid drapery that conformed to the
body. The fragrance became one of the best-sellers of all times.
In 1975, Lagerfeld was the designer for the French fashion house Chloé when
CHLOE, their signature fragrance was introduced. The bottle, designed by Joseph
Messina, is a clear glass sphere that serves as a vase for two frosted glass leaves or
calla lilies.These abstract blossoms give the bottle a poetic allure. It is a small,
modernist sculpture. Although Chloé was not a well-known fashion brand in the
U.S. at the time, this heavy, tuberose-based floral scent was enormously popular.
In 1977, OPIUM shook things up. The name alone set loose a fire storm of
controversy. Didn’t it glorify the use of drugs? The launch, an international event, set
a bar that has never been equaled for extravagance, theatricality, and press coverage. It
featured a Chinese junk in New York harbor, a host of celebrities, and excess galore.
The scent by Jean Amic and Jean-Louis Sieuzac was a powerful oriental. For me, the
remarkable bottle was the main event. The designer, Pierre Dinand, showed great
originality, taking his inspiration from a Japanese inro, a little case made of
superimposed compartments that was attached to the wearer’s belt by cords. It was
used to carry medicine, tobacco, and other precious things and was often exquisitely
wrought. Many inro were made of cinnabar, a kind of thick orange-red lacquer.
Dinand used red plastic to imitate lacquer, leaving only a tiny porthole through which
the liquid of the perfume can be glimpsed. Opium and Yves Saint Laurent appear in
gold letters. Hiding the glass bottle behind plastic was an audacious novelty that
would be imitated, as would the powerful oriental scent that it contained.
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OPPOSITE PAGE:
TOP: HALSTON, HALSTON ,1975.
DESIGNED BY ELSA PERETTI.
BOTTOM: CHLOÉ, CHLOÉ, 1975.
DESIGNED BY JOSEPH MESSINA.
RIGHT: OPIUM, YVES SAINT LAURENT, 1977.
DESIGNED BY PIERRE DINAND.
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
OSCAR, the fragrance introduced by the American designer
Oscar de la Renta that same year, was romantic where Opium
had been bold. The bottle, by Serge Mansau, is lobed like an
Alvar Aalto vase and surmounted by a large glass flower at the
center of which is a drop of dew.The soft folds of this corolla
have the texture of fine silk tulle. The bottle interprets the
feminine elegance of Oscar de la Renta’s couture gowns.
OSCAR, OSCAR DE LA RENTA, 1977.
DESIGNED BY SERGE MANSAU.
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A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
THE 1980s
The couture house founded by Jacques Balmain in 1945 already
had several successful perfumes before it entered into a
partnership with Revlon, now headed by Michel Bergerac
whose brother Jacques was a popular film actor. IVOIRE from
1979 is a bottle I find particularly elegant. Designed by Pierre
Dinand, it develops the idea of using a casing of plastic over
glass that had been so successful in his Opium bottle. In fact,
ivory had been one of the first materials to be successfully
imitated in an early celluloid; antique shops are full of “French
ivory” dresser sets from the turn-of-the-century, quite
convincing copies of the real thing. This bottle is square with
softly curved edges. A shell of vanilla plastic frames a clear glass
window on which the name appears. Clean, understated and
sophisticated, this design very effectively imitates the material
for which it is named. In 1983, Balmain introduced a men’s
fragrance called Ebène, ebony is the natural counterpart to
ivory, particularly in piano keys.The concept was not unlike
Adrian’s black and white pair, Saint and Sinner.
IVOIRE, BALMAIN, 1979.
The careless hedonism of the ’70s ended as drugs
and the AIDS epidemic began to claim victims.
The ’80s would be a crasser, more materialistic era.
In the Reagan years, money mattered; and those
who had it, flaunted it. Popular fantasies were
fueled by Dynasty and Danielle Steele. Big
shoulders revived the aggressive Joan Crawford
look, but worn now by Joan Collins. Nancy
Reagan brought West Coast style to the White
House. The perfume that exemplified these trends
came out of Beverly Hills. Giorgio, in its yellow
and white striped packaging, had the aggressiveness
of an angry bee, and it was inescapable.
Throughout the ’80s, perfumes tended to be strong
and brash, the kind that were spritzed in
department stores and overpowered you in
elevators. Christian Lacroix burst on the scene in
1987. Garish colors and neo-baroque accessories
gave his pouf dresses a circus air. Excess was the
watchword. Only too much was enough.
French fashion designer, Jean Charles Brosseau, introduced the
popular fragrance OMBRE ROSE in 1981. The bottle,
inspired by an art deco original for a Mury perfume called
Narcisse Bleu, is an octagon of frosted glass impressed with a
geometric pattern of small flowers.The liquid itself is tinted
pink, echoing both the paradoxical name (pink shadow) and the
predominantly rose note of the scent itself.
OMBRE ROSE, JEAN CHARLES BROSSEAU, 1981.
DESIGNED BY PIERRE DINAND.
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A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
The flamboyant Italian designer Gianni Versace introduced
GIANNI VERSACE by Versace in 1981. The unusual bottle and
stopper look like hunks of rock crystal, irregularly hewn and
facetted. The most striking feature is the internal asymmetry; the
lower left side of the flacon is made of solid glass, creating a steep
angle that the amber liquid accentuates.
In 1983, the French designer, Emanuel Ungaro, introduced his first
scent, DIVA. The bottle designed by Jacques Helleu is supremely
elegant.The sloping sides are embraced by fluting that is
crisscrossed at the center, leaving a V into which is inserted the
small red label. A fan-shaped stopper completes a design that plays
on the draped effects Ungaro achieved in his sexy dresses.
Paloma Picasso, daughter of the 20th century’s most famous artist,
had begun designing jewelry for Tiffany’s in 1980. Her style was
bold with enormous semi-precious stones in simple settings. She
herself was a beauty with raven hair and a slash of blood red
lipstick. She launched her own fragrance PALOMA PICASSO
MON PARFUM in 1984. The presentation is eccentric: a flat,
vertical disk with, at its center, a circle of glass containing the
golden liquid. The top half of the outer ring lifts off to reveal the
stopper. The image is triumphantly solar, like a monstrance, a very
Spanish association. But to me, it looks a lot like the yolk and
white of a fried egg. It is eccentric, and I wouldn’t say it is
beautiful, but, as an object, it carries a certain charge of mystery
and glamour. The designer was Ben Kotyuk.
OPPOSITE PAGE: GIANNI VERSACE, VERSACE, 1981.
RIGHT, TOP: DIVA, EMANUEL UNGARO, 1983. DESIGNED BY JACQUES HELLEU.
RIGHT, BOTTOM: MON PARFUM, PALOMA PICASSO,1984. DESIGNED BY BEN KOTYUK.
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A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
LEFT: BIJAN, BIJAN, 1987. DESIGNED BY BIJAN PAKZAD.
OPPOSITE PAGE: MONTANA PARFUM DE PEAU, CLAUDE
MONTANA, 1986. DESIGNED BY SERGE MANSAU.
Claude Montana was a provocative French couturier of the
1980s with an edgy, bad boy persona. On the runway, he
showed outfits suitable for the warrior-women of action comics
or science-fiction thrillers. He loved leather, and he gave his
women the shoulders of linebackers. Predictably, MONTANA
PARFUM DE PEAU of 1986 was an aggressive scent, and the
bottle design by Serge Mansau is highly original. Bottle and
cap together are a continuous, twisted, many-ringed column of
frosted glass. The design is said to have been inspired by the
spiraling trajectory of a falling sycamore seed, a Futurist study
in elapsed time. However the torque and strata also make it
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look like some kind of geological formation. It is flat on top
— a mesa in Montana, perhaps.
The Iranian-American designer Bijan Pakzad extolled the
blatant appeal of over-the-top luxury when he opened his
appointment-only Rodeo Drive boutique. In 1987, he
launched BIJAN, a fragrance for women. The bottle he himself
designed is a puzzle: two superimposed rings of clear glass.
When it is half full, each ring contains liquid, a conundrum that
seems to defy the laws of physics. The figure 8 design with the
two open centers is clever and appealing.
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
Jewelers successfully followed fashion designers into the realm
of perfume, lending the cachet of their name. In 1987,Tiffany
& Co. introduced TIFFANY, a fragrance in a tailored
rectangular bottle designed by Pierre Dinand. Both the cap and
bottle are rimmed in a squared-off armature of silver metal,
reminding us of the sterling silver that is one of Tiffany’s
specialties. The bottle has a rather severe, industrial look.
The prestigious French jewelry firm of Boucheron, founded in
1858, has been located at 26 place Vendôme since 1893. They
followed their competitors by launching their first fragrance
BOUCHERON in 1988. The striking bottle designed by Joël
Desgrippes is shaped like precious ring. At the top, a metal
bezel supports a huge blue sapphire. A reeded circle of frosted
glass, filled with gold liquid, surrounds an ‘empty’ clear glass
center on which the name Boucheron appears.
LEFT, TOP: TIFFANY, TIFFANY & CO., 1987. DESIGNED BY PIERRE DINAND.
LEFT, BOTTOM: BOUCHERON, BOUCHERON, 1988. DESIGNED BY JOËL DESGRIPPES.
OPPOSITE PAGE:
RIGHT, TOP: ROMEO GIGLI, ROMEO GIGLI ,1989. DESIGNED BY SERGE MANSAU.
The ethereal Pre-Raphaelite princesses that Italian fashion
designer Romeo Gigli sent down the runway in jewel-tone
velvets and diaphanous chiffons could have stepped out of a
play by Maeterlinck. As a poetic vision, it was eons away from
Claude Montana’s crew of brazen vixens. In 1989, the
ROMEO GIGLI perfume was introduced. The bottle, designed
by Serge Mansau, looks as if it has landed from Mars. It is
bulbous, low and round like a child’s top, with a central dark
plastic cone or spire on which a wavy frosted scarf is impaled.
Perhaps it is a genie escaping from a magic bottle. In any case,
this is a strange and captivating object. And it is a reminder of a
time when the French domination of fashion was being
strongly challenged by a succession of innovative Italian
designers.
SAMSARA was created in 1989 by Jean-Paul Guerlain, the
last family member to create perfumes for the house of
Guerlain. It was intended as a celebration of the 100 years
since the introduction of Jicky, Guerlain’s first great perfume.
This is an Oriental fragrance based on sandalwood and
jasmine.The exotic name is a Sanskrit word signifying the
path to Nirvana.The ruby red bottle refers to a sacred color in
Buddhism. The bottom part is a bowl, banded in gold that fits
perfectly in the hands, as if it were a sacred vessel. It is topped
with a lid surmounted by round gold stopper. The designer,
Robert Granai, found his inspiration in a statue of a
Cambodian dancer that he saw at the Musée Guimet, a
museum of Asian art in Paris. He said the bottle evokes a
dancer rising from the ground.
RIGHT, BOTTOM: SAMSARA, GUERLAIN, 1989. DESIGNED BY ROBERT GRANAI.
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FAR LEFT: TRÉSOR, LANCÔME, 1990.
DESIGNED BY CHARLES BOUSSIQUET.
LEFT: BEVERLY HILLS, GALE HAYMAN, 1990.
OPPOSITE PAGE: DAZZLING GOLD,
ESTEE LAUDER, 1998.
THE 1990s
1989 was a watershed, the end of the Cold War. In some ways,
the 21st century began ten years before the Millennium with
the fall of the Berlin wall, the crumbling of the Soviet Union,
and the resultant globalization that opened a new era. Fashion
reflected the change; styles were sleeker. Giorgio Armani was
the man of the moment.
In the ’90s, fashion fled from excess to the extreme of
minimalism. Black was ubiquitous, and Calvin Klein’s austere
slip dresses were bare of adornment. Jewelry was reduced to
thin chains or tiny stones on wire. Carolyn Bessette Kennedy
was the new ideal. Fragrances were similarly purified; watery
concoctions replaced the powerful scents that had flourished in
the ’80s. Yet there was a counter trend. Angel, a strong and
unique fragrance introduced in 1992, became a best-seller, either
fervently embraced or detested.
TRESOR was a new fragrance by Sophia Grojsman that
Lancôme introduced in 1990 (the name had been used previously
for a scent that was now discontinued). The tiered bottle,
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designed by Charles Boussiquet, has five superimposed levels that
step up and out from a small base. The indentations cause the
little object to glitter like a jewel, and the inverted pyramid shape
gives a certain tactile pleasure as one imagines holding it in the
hand. The design recalls Lelong’s Opening Night, but inverted.
After her divorce from Fred Hayman, the owner of the Rodeo
Drive boutique Giorgio with whom she had created a
phenomenonally successful fragrance in the 1980s, Gale Hayman
founded her own brand. BEVERLY HILLS was her first
fragrance in 1990. The egg-shaped bottle is meant to represent
a rock on which a realistically sculpted leopard is crouching.
This is a luxurious little objet d’art as well as a perfume bottle,
reminding us of the work of Fabergé.
DAZZLING GOLD was introduced by Estee Lauder in 1998 in
a heavy crystal bottle. Pale gold liquid occupies a cavity within a
narrow oval urn that sits on a square base. The frosted stopper is
a long, upwardly curved bar. Modern, yet highly tactile and almost
timeless, this superbly elegant design has an almost mythic presence.
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
THE 2000s
By the millennium, the pendulum had swung again. Sex and the
City portrayed single girls in New York as free spirits clicking
along the pavement in flirty dresses and Manolo mules. The
shock of 9/11 was an interruption, but excess returned as Wall
Street boomed, and media moguls flaunted their billions. The
internet and the global market whipped up fashion cycles to
warp speed; new merchandise arrived in the mega stores not
seasonally, but weekly. H&M and Zara offered throwaway chic.
Fragrances were launched and abandoned at a similar pace, as
Sephora became the new mecca. Created for a moment’s glory,
these were generally fruity floral scents that appealed to girls
who didn’t want anything too “perfumey.” Celebrity fragrances
were created with the names of pop stars and movie actresses.
In 2005, FLOWERBOMB was the first fragrance from the
avant-garde Dutch fashion designers Viktor and Rolf, created in
collaboration with L’Oréal. The bottle was the work of
designer Fabien Baron (who had previously designed
Madonna’s Sex book). The facetted glass bottle is the size and
shape of a hand grenade, but it contains a mauve-pink liquid.
The bottle can stand on its base or rest on its side. The scent
has been described as very sweet and candy-like. The
provocative name might allude to the Tom Jones song ‘Sex
Bomb’ that had been a big hit in 2000.
OPPOSITE PAGE: FLOWERBOMB, VIKTOR AND ROLF, 2005.
DESIGNED BY FABIEN BARON.
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A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
LEFT: JUICY COUTURE, JUICY COUTURE, 2006.
OPPOSITE PAGE: LIFE THREADS SILVER GOLD PLATINUM, LA PRAIRIE, 2009.
that would have been found on a Hollywood dressing table. On
the label, the traditional heraldic “By appointment to Her
Majesty the Queen” coat-of-arms of stuffy, high-class English
purveyors of luxury goods is imitated with two Scottie dogs.
Juicy Couture is a clothing line that appeals to teenage girls by
offering tongue-in-cheek retro glamour with a deliberately
cheeky parody of traditional Haute Couture style. The décor of
Juicy stores is a “bubblegum-boudoir” in candy pink with
playful references to glamour-girl and Marie-Antoinette-style.
The fragrance JUICY COUTURE was introduced in 2006.
The truly elegant bottle is in keeping with the luxe fantasy – a
rectangular crystal bottle with a facetted stopper of the kind
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In 2009, the upscale Swiss skincare company La Prairie
introduced a collection of three fragrances called LIFE
THREADS SILVER, GOLD, and PLATINUM. The concept
of “the thread of life” is an ancient metaphor, reminding us of the
three Fates who, according to the Greeks, spun, measured, and
cut the thread of life. Metal filaments are wrapped horizontally
around these clear, sharply rectangular bottles, encasing them in
one of the precious metals. Most unusually, they are suspended
between transparent panels, giving the impression that they float
in space. This is a clean, totally contemporary design.
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A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
THE 2010s
The Wall Street meltdown threw it all up in the air again.The
unfolding of the 2010s is still unforeseeable. New EU
regulations governing ingredients make the future of classical
perfumery uncertain. However, a new interest in quality and
good value is promising. The emergence, in the past few years,
of innumerable “niche’ lines reveals a quest by consumers for
fragrances of good quality and their willingness to pay for
them. I have faith in the future of my profession.Women and
men are as receptive to scent as they have ever been, and
beautiful perfume bottles continue to cast their alluring spell.
In 2010, Calvin Klein introduced BEAUTY. Presented without
irony, both the name and the form of this perfume bottle
proclaim enduring values. Consistent with the taste for
simplicity and uncluttered design to which the company has
remained true, the bottle by Wilhelm Liden is an upright glass
oval framed in silver metal upon which is poised a neat
cylindrical stopper. The lines are clean and modern, the
proportions balanced and unexaggerated. This elegant perfume
bottle seems to presage a return to the essence of glamour.
OPPOSITE PAGE: BEAUTY, CALVIN KLEIN, 2010.
DESIGNED BY WILHELM LIDEN.
ABOVE: BEAUTY ADVERTISEMENT,
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CALVIN KLEIN, 2010.