Fragrance Bottles: Harajuku Lovers
Harajuku Lovers, a brand created by Coty Prestige and singer Gwen Stefani, launched a collection of fragrances with an unexpected look. Five different doll-shaped caps were designed to resemble Stefani and her backup dancers. Like the Harajuku Lovers fashion and accessories line, the fragrance packaging draws inspiration from the colorful styles of trendsetting teens in Harajuku, Japan.
“We had many meetings with Gwen to discuss her vision for the packaging. The concept was clear from the start—we wanted to bring the Harajuku characters to life with the packaging,” says Jon Dinapoli, creative director, Coty Prestige. “There was a lot of back and forth between my team and Gwen’s team to get each character perfectly crafted. Many models were made, with various tweaks to shape, size, and decoration, before any approvals were given.”
Once Dinapoli had approval from Stefani, negotiations with suppliers began. “That, too, was a long process, as we were searching for perfection with the dolls and how they functioned. It took several trips and many hours in the factory to accomplish the task,” says Dinapoli.
The biggest challenge was determining decorating capabilities. “The patterns are so intricate and the shapes so detailed that it was very challenging to achieve the level of quality I was searching for. The solutions we found were to compromise when we could, but then to push hard for the really important aspects,” says Dinapoli.
The caps were made of rigid plastic and were decorated using a few different techniques. All of the dolls, in their entirety, were cast in skin-colored plastic. Some parts of each figure’s clothing are hand-applied decals, while other details were hand-painted. “If you look at each doll, you can see that each is slightly different due to the hand-crafted decoration,” says Dinapoli.
The team first began looking for suppliers that had experience manufacturing dolls and toys, but then chose suppliers Jackel Cosmetics and Alcan Packaging (New York City), due to the amount of detailed work involved. Once the fragrance bottle is empty, the stand-alone caps can be saved as collectibles.
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