Inside Design: Signature Style
Each new edition of Jean Paul Gaultier's famous torso-shaped bottle is often a reflection of the fashion designer's most current design trends. " By Jennifer Kwok, Managing Editor
When it comes to fragrances, certain factors can help brand a company. A signature bottle is one of them. "A signature bottle makes it easy for customers to identify the brand by the bottle," says Rochelle Bloom, president of The Fragrance Foundation. "I think of the great companies like Chanel and Guerlain that use one famous bottle and feel it is as much of a signature as the juices themselves."
A signature bottle can be deemed successful if consumers immediately identify it with the brand. Many fragrance names in the industry are already synonymous with one specific bottle. For start-up brands, developing a signature bottle early on is a first step toward cementing its brand image.
Simple Solution
For a small company, selecting one bottle is often a cost-saving choice. The side benefit, however, is that the bottle becomes the brand's signature.
Two such examples are Fresh Scents by Terri and Demeter Fragrance Library. Both brands' fragrances are housed in stock, square glass bottles. "Right now we are a smaller business, so stock packaging is really cost-efficient for us," says Terri Weitzman, founder of Fresh Scents by Terri.
"Cost is a major factor," agrees Christopher Brosius, perfumer, founder, vice president, and creative director for Demeter Fragrance Library, which includes approximately 180 fragrances in its collection. "Choosing a limited range of bottle shapes allows for the greatest possible expansion of the Library at the least possible cost. Can you imagine the production costs of doing 180 different bottles--let alone the design challenge of doing special shapes that relate to each particular scent?"
Cost-wise, using one bottle is definitely pragmatic for these companies. As a side benefit, however, customers also come to identify the brands by their simple stock bottles. The result is that, at no additional cost, a signature look for the brand is born.
"The standard bottle shape is kind of an autograph for my company," says Weitzman. "You can spot my products on the shelf because of the bottle shape. They all match together when displayed on a shelf."
Brosius also appreciates the benefits of a consistent look. "It is important that people recognize Demeter scents when they're shopping," he says. "Over the years, we have developed a look that says 'Demeter' to a lot of people. By keeping the packaging consistent, we make their search [for our products] a bit easier for them. By changing certain elements slightly, such as the label's color band or image, we are able to present an enormous range of fragrances that still clearly all come from the same place."
Collectible Cachet
A newly decorated elongated heart-shaped bottle is launched for each of Escada's limited-edition fragrances. While a simple bottle suits brands like Demeter and Fresh Scents, for others, a one-of-a-kind signature bottle is the best way to make a brand distinct. Companies like Jean Paul Gaultier, Bond No. 9, Escada, and Kenzo all have trademark bottles that have become synonymous with the brands themselves.
These bottles span a range of looks: for Escada, it is the colorful elongated heart-shaped bottle; for Jean Paul Gaultier, the torso-shaped bottle; for Bond No. 9, the star-shaped bottle; and for Kenzo, the graceful flower-stem-shaped bottle. Each year, the bottles' shapes stay the same, but the companies change their decor slightly to reflect current trends.
Escada Beauté, for instance, has released many different versions of its heart-shaped bottle over the years. In fact, the heart shape has been a hallmark for the brand ever since it launched its first fragrance in 1990. "Margaretha Ley [Escada's cofounder] always included a heart design in her collections, and the bottle carries on her artistic impression," says Nicholas Munafo, senior vice president of marketing, training, and public relations for Cosmopolitan Cosmetics, which licenses the Escada fragrances.
Since 1990, different versions of the heart-shaped bottle have debuted, all marketed as limited editions. Escada even claims it was the first brand to place a limited-edition fragrance on the market.
Some of Escada's most famous limited-edition collections are in colorful, frosted elongated heart-shaped bottles, which first debuted with a Chiffon Sorbet fragrance. Since then, the company has released different editions of the bottle, in colors that reflect the season's trends.
Collectors of the bottles line up for the latest edition. "The anticipation of what Escada will do with the bottle gets our customers very excited," says Munafo. "The requests for it come in months before the new launch. The [limited editions of the] Escada signature fragrance help to keep dedicated customers involved with the brand. They also attract many younger customers, since the scent and look is always colorful and vibrant."
ElsaBeth Crohn, president of the International Perfume Bottle Association, a worldwide association of 1500 fragrance bottle collectors, says that she looks forward to seeing the newest versions of a brand's signature bottle. "Each one is collectable," she says. "As a collector, I don't think it's that important whether or not the actual shape of the bottle changes, but rather, whether or not the brand has done something more interesting to it in terms of changing its decor. I want to see something different, whether it's the color or something else. I welcome these types of bottles, more than those that keep the exact same shape and decoration for different fragrances. For instance, I like what Escada has done. I love the way the brand keeps using the same bottle shape, but keeps changing the colors and the fragrances. I look forward to the next one coming out because all of the bottles look great together. When you group them together, it's much more impressive."
Sending a Message in a Bottle
Signature bottles can also help to tell the story of a company.
Take clothing designer Jean Paul Gaultier's famous torso-shaped fragrance bottle. The first time the designer launched the bottle was in 1994 for the women's scent Classique. The men's version of the torso bottle was launched for the Le Male fragrance in 1996. Since then, Gaultier has launched the same bottle shape, in different clothing, for subsequent limited editions.
For Gaultier, each new edition of the bottle is an opportunity to dress up the bottle to reflect the designer's latest fashions. "It's very interesting to see how Jean Paul Gaultier changes the corsets and designs and how the designs often mirror his fashions for that season," says Terese McDonald, vice president of retail sales, development, and training for Jean Paul Gaultier. "Customers are very drawn to the changing of the corset, how it's evolved, and how it reflects the evolution of Jean Paul Gaultier. If you look at the corset's history, you can see how it's gone from being a little bit harder-edged and how it's much softer now, like his fashions."
The bottles have definitely become a trademark for Gaultier, reinforcing his image as a designer. "The consumer is very aware of the corset and the Le Male torso," says McDonald. "Customers very much identify them with Jean Paul Gaultier. The bottles really tell a story about Jean Paul Gaultier and how he's nurtured these bottles and how each one has a slightly different look. Customers want to buy into that story."
The bottle for Brosius's M1 Narcissus perfume is wrapped in parchment paper, then inserted into a drafting tube For niche fragrance brand Bond No. 9, the concept of New York City lies behind each edition of its trademark star-shaped bottle. Since each of the brand's fragrances is dedicated to a New York City neighborhood, the star-shaped bottle for each different fragrance features a subway token corresponding with the neighborhood. "I love New York City," says Laurice Rahmé, president of Bond No. 9. "I like the thought that we can sell the essence of the city in a bottle."
The bottle is a custom mold that Rahmé designed. Bond No. 9 uses it repeatedly for its fragrances. "For a niche brand like us, cost is very important," says Rahmé. "Since we have our own mold, we have to get mileage out of it. "What looks to some like a star shape was actually designed to represent the shape of a person," says Rahmé.
One could argue that using the common bottle shape helps Bond No. 9 reinforce the brand's concept of unifying the neighborhoods of New York City, while making each bottle distinct by using the different tokens.
The same bottle is also sometimes decorated with significantly different designs to call attention to some of the city's more famous boroughs. For instance, this Christmas, Bond No. 9's Wall Street fragrance will debut in a solid black version of the bottle. It will be decorated with gold tokens, paying homage to Wall Street's monetary theme. In May, the brand also launched its Eau de New York fragrance, to represent the entire island of Manhattan. The bottle was finished in a solid white color and decorated with eight different-colored neighborhood subway tokens.
"The same bottle shape can take on very different looks when dressed differently," says Rahmé. "If you see the bottle in white for the Eau de New York fragrance, it looks very different from the other clear versions. Still, people recognize the bottle shape as being Bond No. 9. It also becomes a souvenir for people visiting the city."
Rahmé also likes the boutique, niche feel that the signature bottle helps build. "I like the fact that when people see many different versions of our bottle, it's emphasized that we have a large selection of fragrances," she says. "That is key. And I like the uniformity of the way they all look together on the shelf. It creates a boutique ambience. Larger companies launch a lot of different packages and sometimes each fragrance can look like it comes from a completely different company."
Success, Again and Again
Perhaps no company knows more about the success of a signature bottle than Kenzo. In 1991, it launched its FlowerbyKenzo bottle, the transparent, slim, curved bottle with the image of a poppy stem silk-screened on the bottle and a poppy bud on the cap. Kenzo has since used the same bottle for subsequent fragrance editions, including the metallic-red version for FlowerbyKenzo Le Parfum and the new limited-edition fragrance launched this May, named Les Mots.
For Les Mots, the only thing the company has changed is the bottle's decoration. The bottle shape and the fragrance still stem from the original FlowerbyKenzo line. The Les Mots bottle is solid white and printed in black ink with words that are arranged in the shape of Kenzo's trademark poppy.
"With this limited-edition fragrance release, we kept the shape of the original FlowerbyKenzo bottle to tell the story of the poppy," says Patrick Guedj, creative director for Kenzo. "The continuity and clean lines of the bottle made a perfect canvas for Les Mots, giving life and emotion to the design of the famous flower bottle."
Les Mots' success may even follow in the footsteps of the original FlowerbyKenzo fragrance and Le Parfum. In 2001, the original FlowerbyKenzo bottles won the 2001 FiFi Award for best women's European fragrance. This year, the red bottles for Le Parfum received the prestigious FiFi Award for outstanding packaging for a women's fragrance.
Making a Lasting Impression
Many companies continue selling their signature bottles even as they introduce brand-new fragrance bottles to their lines. As new bottles are added to a brand's packaging portfolio, maintaining the bottles that are classic helps to anchor a brand's image. "There is room for both [types of packaging]," says The Fragrance Foundation's Bloom. And as long as care and attention are given to new bottle designs, each stands the chance to become another signature for a brand.