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 Lauren Invasion What's behind Ralph's move into Europe?
07/29/2002
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TIME for Fashion The art — and business — of fashion
04/2002
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Clothes
That Say It All
Europe's first intelligent garments aren't cheap Jan.
7, 2001
Battle
of the Boring
Haute couture's old guard holds sway. Who cares? Jul.
23, 2001
Belgium's
Fashion Fete
Antwerp throws a $5 million party Jul. 2, 2001
Made
to Measure
Popular Spanish fashion group Inditex targets a new market May.
14, 2001
Putting
Sparks in Marks
British fashion brand M&S loses touch Apr. 15,
2001
Clothes
Vs. Fashion
Should it be art or commerce? Apr. 5, 2001
In
the Bag
Gucci's acquisitions create a stable of haute labels Apr.
2, 2001
With
Family Like This...
The strange tale of the Gucci dynasty Apr. 2, 2001
Born-Again
Christians
Is there room in the house of Dior for two designers? Feb.
12, 2001
Frock
Wars
If sales are an afterthought, how do you know who wins Feb.
5, 2001
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Polo.com
Ralph Lauren's online fashion and home design store
fashion.net
Features a fashion-specific search engine, news, message boards, chat, job listings
fashionwiredaily
Fashion news-wire, updated daily. Requires free registration.
The Fashion Page
Viewpoint on fashion styles, and trends, by Lynda Stretton |
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SCOTT JONES for TIME
GUY WILLIAMS: Williams and Lancaster, the consumer products firm, collaborated on the packaging for Skin Maximizer and Re-Oxygen. Williams also devised the bottle for the scent Casran by Chopard.
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Designers are the hidden force behind the success of blockbuster scents
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By Jennie James |
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Early in the last century, many women who wore fragrance collected it from dispensers in containers they brought from home. But in 1907, perfumer François Coty asked jewelry-and-glass designer René Lalique to create a bottle for Coty's new scent, L'Effleurt, and the relationship between scent and packaging was born. At least Coty had already put together the actual perfume. In the modern fragrance market, worth $60 billion globally, the juice starts out relatively low in the pecking order — after the product's concept, name, advertising and bottle have all been considered. The overall design is what brings customers to the counter — crucial since, according to NPD Beauty Trends, the number of fragrances in the prestige category alone has risen by more than 25% to over 600 in the past five years.
When designer Guy Williams created the flacon for Glow by J.Lo — the collaboration between American star Jennifer Lopez and personal care company Lancaster that launched this fall — he had to put Lopez' gutsy beauty in a bottle. Celebrity fragrances are tricky — the most successful, Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds, has lasted 11 years against a bizarre assortment of competitors. Although Lopez had final veto on the Glow bottle's design, it was Williams who thought up its sexy shape and the half-sophisticated, half-girly chains that adorn its hips. "There was old-school Hollywood glamour but sassy Bronx girl in there too," he says. If the Glow bottle would look at home on a dressing table, the flacon for Crave by Calvin Klein, to be launched this week, could be found in a man's briefcase, along with other gadgets like a cellphone and palm pilot. Instead of glass, the Crave bottle is made of plastic, is transparent and has the atomizer on the side rather than the top. "It's a mix of low and high-tech," says designer Fabien Baron, who put together Crave's bottle, packaging and marketing design. "For young guys, who have a lot of little toys."
Not all organizations, however, look outside for their design inspiration: the bottle for Dior Addict, Christian Dior's much anticipated follow-up to its 1999 blockbuster, J'adore, was devised in-house. Through its rectangular, black-and-blue design, Dior is hoping to sell a new, audacious feminity. It's quite a departure from J'adore, which featured a multi-ringed African-style gold chain around the neck of the bottle. "If you do $40 million in revenues at retail, you're a superstar," says Sagra Maceira de Rosen, a luxury goods analyst at J.P. Morgan. "J'adore is well over $100 million. That's why everybody wants a perfume — it's like playing the lottery. It's relatively expensive to develop, but not compared to profits." While the design attracts the eye, it is the nose that is the ultimate arbiter of a successful perfume. "If a customer doesn't like the scent, she won't repurchase," says Annette Green, head of the Fragrance Foundation. "The fragrance is the moment of truth." And the bottle is the art that contains it.
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