When Bulgari released its unisex scent, Black, created by perfumer Annick Menardo, in 1998, it was a huge departure from the Italian jewelry house then known more for its conservative-if geometric- elegance than for its edginess. The ultra-urban scent, with its traces of black tea, tobacco, and burnt rubber, was housed in a ground-breaking puck-shaped bottle sheathed in black rubber. A decade later, Bulgari has cornered the market on modern baubles, and is this August will be releasing Bulgari Jasmin Noir, its latest fragrance, created by Carlos Benaïm and Sophie Labbé pivoting on black licorice and a new varietal of Black Jasmine for a darker twist on the traditional floral. The restrained luxury of the broad-shouldered black bottle with gold hardware, a welcome respite from the gimmicky Omnia perfume interlocking-circle design, signals a return to the classic shape of Bulgari’s other women’s fragrances. It also announces a renewed sophistication for Bulgari, its unexpected mystery conveyed by the opaqueness of ebony satin glass.
Indeed, Bulgari is positioned at the forefront of the black perfume/packaging trend that has swept 2008. The prestigious FiFi UK packaging award for 2008 was won, for the men’s perfume category, by Canali Black Diamond, a multi-faceted fragrance containing the rare ingredient Black Leather Accord. As in the case of Bulgari’s Jasmin Noir packaging, it’s the color that makes the statement, as the bottle shape is the same as that of all of Canali’s colognes. Rendered in opaque, almost tangibly thick black, uninterrupted by a logo or label, which is discreetly stamped on the rim of the silver cap, the bottle references an inkwell.
Ink is definitely a trend, as evidenced by Lalique Encre Noire (Black Ink), created by nose Nathalie Lorson. With its simple square black crystal bottle and squared-off wooden stopper, the packaging at first glance is far more simplistic than Canali’s curved and faceted creation, but here the play is on the materials: the dark glass is discreetly opalescent, evocative of Lalique’s elaborate crystal creations despite the restrained geometry of the form, an appropriate vessel for the darkness of the notes of licorice intriguingly paired with the obscure addition of the rare essence of the grapefruit scented roots of an Iranian grass. The material richness of the unexpected veined wood stopper echoes the sensuous warmth of the exotic-masculine spice of Bourbon and spicy Haitian vetiver and cypress notes of the jus. This is an intellectual fragrance, and the bottle reflects that.
This is not Lalique’s first black perfume bottle creation. In 2006, Tom Ford collaborated with the crystal company to create the piece maîtresse of his Black Orchid collection, a fluted pure black Art-Deco phial with a 23-carat gold name plaque. Each piece was signed and numbered. Within his decision to collaborate with Lalique, trendsetter Ford heralded the end of minimalism in perfumes and their packaging. Ford announced, “The Lalique heritage, tradition, craftsmanship and legacy of iconic fragrance bottles made the decision an easy one (…) In the 1990s, it would have been a transparent bottle with minimalist packaging, transparent juice and a minimalist scent. But we have become so dermatological in our approach to beauty that I wanted to put some glamour back into beauty.”
If Ford, as well as Lalique’s creative team, are well aware of the fragrance/packaging symbiosis, Armani Atttitude, by noses Annick Menardo, who incidentally worked on Bulgari Black, Alberto Morillas, and Olivier Cresp, presents a disconnect between bottle and olfactory experience. Though Attitude’s distinctive bottle, designed by Fabien Baron, won the Fragrance Foundation's FiFi Awards for Men’s Prestige Best Packaging, 2008, its black and silver “Zippo lighter” design confuses. Attitude presents a Calabria lemon-coffee-amber aroma with not a trace of smokiness, so it would seem that this bottle, despite reflecting designer Giorgio Armani’s love of a modernized art Deco aesthetic, with its complex motif of symmetrical, infinitely repeating reflective geometric planes, has no connection to what’s inside it. New York-based packaging expert Marc Rosen explains that Attitude’s container addresses men’s need to “identify with the packaging of their products as they would with a wristwatch or a car. It is a defining item.”
If smoking paraphernalia-inspired packaging is popular with men, it will come as no surprise that another big winner of the design awards comes via the world of luxury libations. L’oeuvre Noire by Kilian, a set of six fragrances from Kilian Hennessy, of Cognac fame, is the Cosmetic & Personal Care Packaging Editor’s Choice 2008 winner for perfume packaging. Each refillable black bottle is a technological masterpiece. Four-part molds were used to prevent visible joint marks, which are brilliantly hidden at the edges of the bottle’s walls. As refillable bottles should last a lifetime, the engraved metal plate adorning the front was affixed using special ultraviolet glue for durability. The bottle comes nestled in a black lacquer box complete with lock and key, reminiscent of something the Marquis de Sade or the fictional Marquise de Merteuil would have used to store letter-writing materials. Fittingly, two of the unisex scents are named Cruel Intentions and Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Created by perfumers Sidonie Lancesseur and Calice Becker, these rich, complex, and heady scents are as intoxicating as Hennessy’s namesake cognac. With such qualities, a bottle will surely not be enough, hence the extremely luxurious refilling fountain: a black-varnish lacquered barrel with a spigot bearing the same key motif as the box.
Pushing design ever further is the limited edition bottle for YSL l’Homme, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, the 2008 laureate of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize. The upturned test-tube shaped bottle is perched on a hexagonal block of dense black foam, and the topsy-turvy theme is perpetuated as the base doubles as the atomiser. The YSL “Cassandre” logo floats within the bottle, giving it a uniquely dynamic and playful dimension that is at odds with the dark stability of the base and the scientific overtones of the test-tube. According to the company, the perfume expresses “a unique combination of luxury and industry.” Indeed the black base is shaped like an industrial bolt and grounds the design.
But black may soon be on its way out, in favor of colorful and “narcotic” perfumes, taking heady scents to a new level. The forerunner in this will be Boudicca Wode, the highly anticipated perfume-fashion event by avant-garde designing team Boudicca. Geza Schoen, the infamous “nose” behind underground line Escentric Molecules, based Wode on the smell of raw opium and included poisonous hemlock extract, to evoke the hemlock-quaffing death of Boudicca’s namesake queen. Wode is a violently cobalt ink that will alarmingly stain clothing and skin, but gradually disappear after application. Insiders claim that the bottle will be a plain silver spray can, but its exact look is being jealously guarded before its imminent Fashion Week preview, in anticipation of a September launch. Boudicca co-designer Brian Kirkby, a graduate of London's Royal College of Art, says, "It will not follow the conventional route of a fragrance. And anyway it would be a huge cliché for us to do a fragrance as we all know it's a well-trodden path. We see it more as art."
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