Editors’ Choice Award Winner: Fragrance
Chinatown Crystallized
by Bond No. 9 New York
The bottle for Chinatown Crystallized by Bond No. 9 New York sparkles with hundreds of Swarovski crystals. This limited-edition package launched last holiday season.
Chinatown is a part of the Bond No. 9 collection of fragrances dedicated to New York City. The different neighborhoods in New York City inspired the names and creations for each fragrance. Laurice Rahmé, president and founder of Bond No. 9, designs all of the packaging.
Rahmé’s signature star-shaped bottle is used for all of the fragrances in the Bond No. 9 collection. The glass bottle is produced by Bormioli Luigi, and the pumps are supplied by Valois of America. “The shape of the bottle is meant to represent a person,” explains Rahmé. Using the same bottle shape unites all of the fragrances in the collection. Although the bottles have the same shape, each bottle is decorated differently.
Chinatown’s decoration was inspired by an Asian tree with plum blossoms. The front and back walls of the bottle feature the same pink-and-white plum blossom pattern, with the colors reversed for each side. Rahmé also wanted the texture of silk and the shine of Chinese lacquer incorporated into the design. “I wanted to create the textured feel of silk shantung and to be able to see the same lines of fibers that would be on the material,” says Rahmé.
“Working with Laurice is like working with a wizard. She comes up with so many creative ideas, and then we have to figure out how to get it all done,” says Bob DeProspo, executive vice president, sales and marketing, for USS Corp., which decorated the bottle.
USS Corp. applied many time-consuming decorating processes to the bottle. After the fibrous texture was created, the pink-and-white design was silk-screened. Next, a clear, high-shine spray was applied to simulate the look of Chinese lacquer.
“A four-pass deco is difficult because each step has to be perfect. If there is one mistake, you lose everything you did before,” says DeProspo. It was also challenging to silk-screen the design right up to the edges of the bottle because the bottle is rounded in the center.
Last, Rahmé had Swarovski crystals applied by hand to both sides of the bottle, in the center of each flower. The hot-pink box features a circular pattern and the Bond No. 9 logo decorated in Swarovski crystals.
CPC Packaging’s awards panelists were impressed with Chinatown Crystallized. “I love the decoration on this bottle. The way it is applied is absolutely ingenious, and the crystals add an element of deliciousness,” says Maiken Erstad, design director for Dragon Rouge.
“I love the whole Bond collection. I think it is brilliant. Whenever you see any one of the fragrance bottles in the collection, you are able to recognize it immediately,” says Lisa Carroll, group creative director for Coty.
Each time a new fragrance is launched, Rahmé says she asks the impossible of her suppliers in order to try to decorate a bottle in an innovative new way. “They think I’m crazy at first, but then they thank me after discovering a way to accomplish it.”