The File: Cosmetic - Two to Tango
Different colors differentiate the men's and women's fragrance bottles for Mambo, which are modeled after a dancer's silhouette. .Identically shaped bottles make Liz Claiborne's Mambo fragrances for men and women a perfect match.
Latin-influenced fashions are a hot trend. Apparel with a Latin look is showing up just about everywhere—on the runways, on movie stars, and on city streets from New York to Los Angeles. Liz Claiborne decided to follow suit with its August 2001 launch of Mambo for Men cologne spray and Mambo for Women Eau de Parfum spray. "We studied the marketplace and saw the increase of Latin culture in mainstream America, including the recent rise of Latin stars in film and music," says Neil Katz, president of Liz Claiborne Cosmetics. "We felt this trend could be translated into a fragrance." To accomplish this, the company needed the packaging to be as sensual as the fragrances, which combine such scents as mango, mandarin, orange blossom, ginger, patchouli, musk, and sandalwood.
In summer 2000, Liz Claiborne chose Soho, NY–based Raison Pure to design the packaging, bottles that would convey a confident attitude, a fervor for life. "We were looking [to create] a design full of sensuality, life, and energy," says Laurent Hainaut, president of Raison Pure. Out of this concept came the idea of fashioning both the men's and women's bottles after the silhouette of a dancer's body. The wavy curve in the middle of the tall, elegant bottles represents the sway of a dancer's hips.
Raison Pure used the same shape for both the men's and women's fragrance bottles so they would appear to fit together, like two people dancing. "It's not easy to design a bottle that will be suitable for both a men's and a women's fragrance," says Hainaut. "The bottles needed to appear both masculine and feminine. We [came up with] a shape simple enough for both fragrances, and used different colors to differentiate them."
The Mambo for Women line features fuchsia, yellow, and black colors to create a warm, flirtatious appeal. n addition to distinguishing the men's and women's fragrances, the colors communicate the theme of movement. "The blurred edges between the different colors [create the feeling that] the two bottles can be fused together, like the swirling motion of two people [dancing] together," says Hainaut. Applying the colors to the glass bottles was challenging because the various hues had to blend well. Coursegreen (Blackburn, England) used an organic color spray process to decorate the bottles, which were supplied by Heinz Glas (Linden, NJ). The women's bottle is sprayed with fuchsia, yellow, and black. The men's bottle is decorated with black, an avocado-green tone, a honey-like color, and fuchsia
The colors are sprayed on in one pass, a process that Doug Thompson, vice president of sales and marketing at Heinz Glas, calls revolutionary. "To our knowledge, this is the first time that this number of colors have been sprayed on in this fashion," says Thompson.
The gold logo, designed by Liz Claiborne, is applied to the bottles on the second pass. It is placed low on the bottles, so as not to interfere with the fluid colors and shapes. Because the surface of the bottles is rounded, the logo is pad printed instead of screen printed.
Green, honey, and fuchsia tones inspire a sensual sensation for the Mambo for Men line. The gold logo, designed by Liz Claiborne, is applied to the bottles on the second pass. It is placed low on the bottles, so as not to interfere with the fluid colors and shapes. Because the surface of the bottles is rounded, the logo is pad printed instead of screen printed.
Raison Pure chose a discreet cap that wouldn't disrupt the flow of the bottle's line. A custom-designed overcap with a matte-gold anodized metal overshell was supplied by Risdon-AMS (Watertown, CT) for the 50- and 100-ml bottles. The overcap was designed with a tapered profile with a 3º offset, according to Jeff Speirs, sales and marketing manager at Risdon-AMS.
Risdon-AMS also supplied the crimpless pump, a stock design complete with an aluminum actuator sleeve and a collar anodized in a customized satin-gold color for the 15-, 50-, and 100-ml spray packages.
The Mambo for Women line includes the Eau de Parfum spray, perfume, body lotion, shower gel, body powder, body scrub, bath soap, and a scented candle. The Mambo for Men line includes the cologne spray, aftershave, aftershave balm, body moisturizer, hair and body wash, hair gel, deodorant, shave cream, and a soap-on-a-rope product. The Mambo line has been launched in 2200 department store doors, and is marketed to men and women ages 18 to 35.