In Closing: The Ultimate Performer
A multimedia exhibition attests to the cinematic importance of fragrance—and its packaging.
Long starring in hundreds of films, including such cinematic gems as Now Voyager, Pillow Talk, Ben Hur, Cleopatra, and Goodfellas: Fragrance. A recent exhibit at the Annette Green Museum at The Fragrance Foundation celebrates the importance of fragrance in cinema, both on and off screen.
"Sex, Scents and Cinema" opened June 6, 2001, during Fragrance Week in New York City, and runs through April 2001. The multimedia exhibition, the fourth exhibition held at the museum, includes a 15-minute video, narrated by film critic Rex Reed, featuring movie clips of fragrance-fascinated characters, as well a selection of fragrances.
"'Sex, Scents and Cinema' chronicles the pivotal role fragrance has played in both character and plot development in the movies," said Annette Green, president of the foundation and the museum. "It is fascinating to see how often fragrance has long been used to create a certain mood in a film."
But perhaps the most compelling part of the exhibition is, the recognition of the role that packaging has played in the identity of a fragrance. The exhibition includes some of the very first fragrances created in the images of celebrities themselves, and the medium through which these fragrances conveyed the personality of these stars was packaging. For instance, Colleen Moore, the first known fragrance marketed by an actress and named after the quintessential flapper herself, was packaged in a bottle featuring shamrocks and green Bakelite to emphasize Moore's Irish heritage. Shocking, Mae West's fragrance, was sold in a flacon sculpted according to West's measurements.
Other items on display include the fragrance Brigitte, packaged in a flacon based on the cape worn by Brigitte Bardot in the film Viva Maria, a Ben Hur promotional perfume blotter, and crystal bottles from Czechoslovakia used on movie sets.
Today's celebrities have learned from these fragrance pioneers. As CPC Packaging reported in its May/June 2001 Potpourri section, supermodel Valeria Mazza chose a curvaceous bottle by Saint Gobain Desjonquères (New York City) for her fragrance Valeria Eau de Parfum. Soap opera star Susan Lucci, who has introduced a number of signature fragrances, carefully chose packaging that reflects her active lifestyle. "I wanted to create two fragrances to help me with the transition from work to play," she explains on her Web site. Susan Lucci Invitation does just that—two glass bottles are intertwined and fused together, one containing Eau de Cologne for daytime and the other Eau de Parfum for evening.
On its Web site, the Fragrance Foundation calls "the use of fragrance...visual shorthand for a character's intentions and feelings." We agree, with an extension of that argument: Packaging has become visual shorthand for the identity of a fragrance.
For more information about The Annette Green Museum at the Fragrance Foundation, please visit www.fragrance.org.