Art Deco skyscraper-style is epitomized by the
bottle for OPENING NIGHT, a perfume that
Lucien Lelong introduced in 1935. This
lozenge shaped step-pyramid rises in angular
tiers, like some kind of abstract Christmas tree.
The geometric shape echoes the stripped
down architecture of the International Style
that had replaced the more ornamental ’20s
moderne.
Lucien Lelong also introduced his best-selling
INDISCRET in 1935, in a bottle I would
redesign for a relaunch in 1999. Here, solid
glass is again cast as folds of drapery or
curtains that “conceal” a tall, bell-like shape.
It looks like a statue before its unveiling. The
draped fabric interprets the name by hinting
at a secret, something that is covered up.
OPPOSITE PAGE: OPENING NIGHT, LUCIEN LELONG,
1935. DESIGNED BY LUCIEN LELONG (?).
LEFT: INDISCRET, LUCIEN LELONG, 1935.
DESIGNED BY LUCIEN LELONG (?).
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A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
The French firm of Lentheric first produced the perfume
MIRACLE in 1926 and sold it in a bottle described as
“obsidian black flecked with gold,” an unusual effect produced
in glass. In 1936, this new bottle was designed for the scent by
Frank McIntosh and produced by Verreries Brosse. This is an
Ionic capital with graceful double volutes and a simple stopper.
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
The perfume house Caron was founded in 1902 by Ernest
Daltroff. A perfume called LA FÊTE DES ROSES was
introduced in 1936 in a bottle that makes no allusion to the
theme of roses. The astonishing gold glass flacon is a tall
rectangle marked with an overall geometric grid pattern that
continues on the stopper, itself a truncated pyramid. The
designer of this severely abstract Deco object, Félicie
Wanpouille (later Bergaud), was Daltroff ’s partner in the firm
and its director when he was obliged to flee France during the
Second World War. It was produced by Baccarat.
OPPOSITE PAGE: MIRACLE, LENTHÉRIC, 1936.
DESIGNED BY FRANK MCINTOSH.
RIGHT: LA FÊTE DES ROSES, CARON,
1936.DESIGNED BY FÉLICIE BERGAUD BACCARAT.
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141
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
A perfume called DANGER, introduced by the American firm
of Ciro in 1938, may have alluded to the risks of the erotic
playing field, but it uncannily echoed the uncertainly of a world
already on the brink of war. The bottle is an unsettling tower
of shallow blocks, haphazardly piled up and seemingly in
imminent danger of collapsing. Even the black cap is made of
two of these off-kilter squares.
Elsa Schiaparelli was an Italian who moved to Paris in the 1920s.
She came into her own in the ’30s as the rival of Coco Chanel.
Each of them cultivated relationships with writers and painters
and incorporated ideas derived from modernism into their work,
but if Chanel had befriended the artists who gravitated around
the Ballets Russes, Schiaparelli frequented Surrealist circles.
Unlike Chanel who had pioneered a spare, chic minimalism,
Schiaparelli embellished her creations with ornate and piquant
decoration - embroidery, fancy buttons, clever hats and
accessories. The presentations she created for her perfumes
were elaborately contrived conversation pieces. The best known
is SHOCKING from 1936, designed by the well-known artist
Leonor Fini. It is a fantastic object that uses Surrealist
techniques of disjunction and montage. The perfume is inside a
clear glass bottle in the shape of dressmaker’s dummy. The
headless torso, with a tape measure draped around its neck, is
topped with a bouquet of artificial flowers, suggesting, perhaps,
that thought has been replaced by nature, dreams and beauty.The
whole thing is contained inside a Victorian glass dome, an
allusion to a kind of parlor ornament so cherished during the
19th century – stuffed birds, shell flowers, dried ferns – set apart
and preserved under glass. Orthodox modernism had rejected
the Victorian era en bloc as the nadir of taste. Its rampant
naturalistic ornament was the enemy, and it had been defeated,
or so it was believed. Unsurprisingly, a reaction set in, though it
was slow to take hold. The ironic return of the repressed was a
feature of Surrealism. The dressmaker’s form and the tape
measure allude to Schiaparelli’s profession. The name is a word
that begins with S, the initial of the creator herself, that she used
as the first letter of all her perfumes. It also alludes to the garish
shade of magenta that she baptized Shocking Pink and used so
daringly in her collections. Kitsch was à mode in the 1930s, and
there were more egregious examples. In 1993, Jean Paul
Gaultier used the idea of a rather more aggressive female torso as
the bottle for his perfume Classique; he dispensed with the glass
dome and presented it inside a Warholesque tin can.
OPPOSITE PAGE: DANGER, CIRO,
1938. BACCARAT.
RIGHT: SHOCKING, ELSA SCHIAPARELLI,
1936. DESIGNED BY LEONOR FINI.
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
France had always been unchallenged in the realm of perfume;
now there was competition. Hattie Carnegie was an Austrian
emigrant to the United States who exchanged the surname
Kanengeiser for that of the American millionaire philanthropist.
She opened her Hattie Carnegie fashion boutique in 1923 to
sell imported clothing and luxury goods, including perfume,
from numerous French makers. She decided to introduce her
own signature scents in 1928. The most striking HATTIE
CARNEGIE bottle is a mannered and moderne gold glass bust
from 1938. The name along the base seems to proclaim that
this is a portrait. The figure is stiff and stares straight ahead.
The geometric features with high arched brows and tight curls
remind us of Archaic Greek sculpture or African masks, both
admired by contemporary artists. This bottle is a miniature
sculpture, but, disconcertingly, one must detach the head from
the body to open it.
HATTIE CARNEGIE,
HATTIE CARNEGIE, 1938.
145
COQUE D’OR, launched by Guerlain in 1938, is once again a
mimetic design, but it is discreet and elegant. In this case the
disjunctive feature is a clash of materials. The bottle, made by
Baccarat of gilded cobalt blue glass, takes the form of a ribbon
neatly tied into a bow. The soft pliability of fabric that we saw
with the Lelong bottles, has here somehow attained the
unrelenting hardness of metal. The sheen of the rounded
contours may remind us of a bias-cut satin gown by Madeleine
Vionnet or the curvaceous fender of a Delahaye automobile.
The squat shape and the appearance of being fabricated from
solid gold give this little bottle the allure of a handsome brooch.
146
Elizabeth Arden followed the example of Schiaparelli when she
chose a Victorian hand-shaped vase as the inspiration for her
perfume IT’S YOU introduced in 1938. She even presented it
under a glass dome. The bottle was created by Baccarat.
Disembodied hands were an obsessive image in Surrealism, perhaps
alluding to the mysteries revealed through automatic writing. This
object manages to be both charming and slightly uncanny.
ABOVE: COQUE D’OR, GUERLAIN, 1938. BACCARAT.
OPPOSITE PAGE: IT’S YOU, ELIZABETH ARDEN, 1938. BACCARAT.
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
THE 1940s
The 1930s had been a time of ruthlessly competing ideologies that led
eventually to the outbreak of war. When France was occupied by the
Germans, the perfume industry was profoundly affected. Materials were
scarce and exports were no longer possible. Few new perfumes were
introduced during those bleak years. But, at the end of the war, American
soldiers who returned from Europe, rarely failed to bring a bottle of French
perfume for the wife, mother or girlfriend at home, and very often it was
Evening in Paris by Bourjois. France reasserted her dominance in fashion
when Christian Dior showed his first post-war collection in 1947. The New
Look instantly banished the memory of war-time austerity, proclaiming a new
age of romantic opulence that looked back to the days of the Second Empire
when cinched waists and crinolines had created a hyper-feminine silhouette.
In the 1930s, the name Adrian had been synonymous with Hollywood
glamour. During his years as a costume designer at MGM, Adrian created
fabulous gowns for the leading stars. He used bias cut satin for Jean Harlow,
gave Joan Crawford her signature wide shoulders, and made clothes that
enhanced the allure of Greta Garbo. But in 1941, he left the studio when
Garbo did, saying later, “When Garbo walked out of the studio, glamour went
with her, and so did I.” Adrian then opened his own fashion house on
Rodeo Drive that offered high fashion at a time when French couture was
unavailable. He launched two perfumes in 1945, naming them SAINT and
SINNER.They were packaged alike, but one in white and the other in black.
The bottles are neat, rectangular flacons with Adrian’s signature in dashing
script across the front.The stopper is an Ionic capital.
SAINT AND SINNER, ADRIAN, 1945.
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A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
REQUÊTE, introduced by Worth in 1944, was presented in
an elegant flat round bottle designed by Mark Lalique. The
body and long neck are decorated with a scalloped border
edged in blue enamel. It is raised on a small foot. This shape
imitated the traditional form of an 18th-century Venetian
blown glass flask.
Elizabeth Arden introduced ON DIT in 1945, a perfume
formulated by the famous French perfumer Edmond
Roudnitska. The sophisticated French name (“they say…”)
suggests a delicious piece of gossip. I love the frosted glass
bottle with the image of two ladies, one with her hand held
discreetly in front of her mouth as she whispers the news into
the ear of her companion; the stopper is a chignon of curls.
One thinks of the film The Women (1939), in which female
friends excitedly exchange rumors about each other’s straying
husbands and reputed lovers while shopping or at the beauty
salon. The “other woman” works at the perfume counter of a
chic department store.
LEFT: REQUÊTE, WORTH, 1944.
DESIGNED BY MARK LALIQUE.
OPPOSITE PAGE: ON DIT,
ELIZABETH ARDEN, 1945.
150
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
The Paris fashion house Nina Ricci created its first perfume,
COEUR JOIE, during the war and launched it in 1946. The
name, playing on the expression “à coeur joie,” meaning “to
one’s heart’s content,” suggests unlimited delight. The scent,
formulated by Germaine Cellier, was a sweet floral, a deliberate
change from the sophisticated perfumes of the ’30s. The
unusual open heart frosted glass bottle, produced by Marc
Lalique, is embossed with a naïve motif of leaves and flowers.
With its scalloped edges, it looks very much like a lacy
valentine. It was no doubt designed in collaboration with
Christian Bérard who was responsible for the neo-Romantic
look cultivated by Nina Ricci. Bérard’s drawing of a bouquet
adorned the box.
Madame Carven opened her couture house in 1945 and
introduced MA GRIFFE, her signature scent, the following
year. The name means both “my brand” and “my claw,”
portending more than a hint of aggressiveness. The style of the
house was young and breezy and always included at least one
dress in green and white, the designer’s favorite colors. The
ultra modern bottle for Ma Griffe, designed by Jacques
Bocquet, is a clear glass cube surmounted by a dramatic halfcircle of shiny gold that looks like the kind of chic “retro” gold
jewel that Joan Crawford might have worn on her lapel.
OPPOSITE PAGE: COEUR JOIE, NINA RICCI, 1946.
DESIGNED BY MARC LALIQUE & CHRISTIAN BÉRARD.
RIGHT: MA GRIFFE, CARVEN, 1946.
DESIGNED BY JACQUES BOCQUET.
153
Dior’s only real rival in Paris after the war was the
Spaniard Cristobal Balenciaga. His clothes were so
austerely pure that it was said that only a true
aficionado could recognize a Balenciaga suit when it
was worn in the street. He introduced the perfume LE
DIX in 1947.The name refers to 10 avenue George V,
the address of his fashion house. The low round bottle
has the simple elegance that his devoted clients adored.
It is fluted like a truncated column with a narrow band
of plain glass at the top on which is affixed a black
label. The flat round stopper, shaped like a mushroom
cap, is cut like a precious gem.
Christian Dior gave his perfumes names that were
variants of his own (Diorissimo, Diorama). MISS
DIOR, introduced in 1947, bears an English honorific,
perhaps as a salute to an important segment of his
clientele. The elegant obelisk designed by Guerry
Colas and made by Baccarat is a miniature monument.
OPPOSITE PAGE: LE DIX, BALENCIAGA, 1947
AND QUADRILLE, 1952.
RIGHT: MISS DIOR, DIOR, 1947.
DESIGNED BY GUERRY COLAS, MADE BY BACCARAT.
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
In 1948 Elizabeth Arden brought out MY LOVE. She is said
to have designed the bottle herself. The graceful contours of a
clear glass “inkwell” are surmounted by a dramatic frosted glass
plume. One might think of Cyrano de Bergerac. We suppose
that this is the inkwell into which a lover has dipped his pen to
write the words “my love,” the beginning of a passionate letter.
The theme would have been appropriate at a time when many
men and women were separated by the war and kept in touch
only by post.
Also in 1948, Parfums Révillon produced a perfume called
CANTILÈNE. The wildly futuristic bottle was designed by the
artist Fernand Léger. Tall and asymmetrical, it has irregularly
curving outlines like a stray piece from a jigsaw puzzle. The
free-form stopper sits above it like a white cloud. The whole
form seems to ripple with movement. The name, derived from
the vocabulary of music, refers to a long, sustained melodic line,
reinforcing the notion of synesthesia between the visual,
olfactory and auditory realms. We are reminded of Arpège.
OPPOSITE PAGE: MY LOVE, ELIZABETH ARDEN, 1948.
DESIGNED BY ELIZABETH ARDEN (?)
RIGHT: CANTILÈNE, PARFUMS RÉVILLON, 1948.
DESIGNED BY FERNAND LÉGER.
157
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
At the end of the decade, ZUT, by
Schiaparelli, was a cheeky provocation: a bottle
in the shape of a woman’s body – from the
waist down! The circular base is the lady’s
skirt that she has let fall about her ankles. The
name – a slangy interjection of surprise –
registers the shock of being suddenly
confronted by this immodest display. Z is,
phonetically and visually, a variant of S, first
letter of the couturière’s name.
OPPOSITE PAGE: ZUT, SCHIAPARELLI, 1949.
LEFT: ADVERTISEMENT FOR ZUT, VERTÈS.
158
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
THE 1950s
The ’50s is notorious as the decade when everyone moved to the
suburbs, had 21⁄2 children, and spent their weekends tending the
lawn. Women put on their aprons and didn’t take them off again
until 1960… Fortunately, that was only part of the story.
Commercial air travel now made society truly international; the Jet
Set was born. In the heady postwar years, some of the most
glamorous people in the world attended some of the most
glamorous parties. Christian Dior had appeared as the King of the
Beasts at Etienne de Beaumont’s Kings and Queens Ball in 1949.
In 1951, Daisy Fellowes was only one of the guests to appear in a
fabulous ball gown by Dior at the Beistegui Ball in Venice, the
party of the century. Hollywood, too, had a love affair with
glamour embodied by stars such as Ava Gardner, Susan Hayward,
Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, and Arlene Dahl.
RIGHT: MISTIGRI, JACQUES GRIFFE, 1952.
OPPOSITE PAGE: ODE, GUERLAIN, 1955, BACCARAT.
160
The couturier Jacques Griffe opened his fashion house in Paris
in 1948. He introduced perfumes such as Griffonage and
Grilou, basing the names on the first syllable of his own
surname. In 1952, he launched MISTIGRI, giving it a popular
name for a pet cat; appropriate perhaps as 'Griffe' means ‘claw.’
The slender, sharp-edged bottle is supremely elegant,
surmounted by a tall, slim stopper.
ODE, introduced in 1955, was the last fragrance created by
Jacques Guerlain. It was a legendary floral scent, in which rose
predominated. The graceful, urn-shaped Baccarat bottle is
embraced by frosted wings.The stopper is a crystal rosebud. I
love the play of textures and the almost flame-like design.
A DESIGNER’S EYE: ICONS OF THE PAST
In 1949, Elizabeth Arden produced a truly remarkable new
bottle for her best-selling perfume MÉMOIRE CHÉRIE. The
flacon and stopper are each completely ringed with wavy bands
of ribbing and grooves that give the bottle an intriguing and
most eccentric profile. This wonderful design, a tour de force
of the glass cutter’s art, must have been a limited edition.
The house of Dior launched DIORISSIMO, a perfume created
by Edmond Roudnitska, in 1956. It is a lily of the valley scent
in honor of Christian Dior’s favorite flower. The inaugural
bottle, created by Baccarat, was a magnificent facetted crystal
amphora mounted in gold metal from which sprang an
exquisite bouquet of golden flowers – lily, carnation and rose
— created by the sculptor Chrystiane Charles.This is an object
that would have felt right at home at Versailles. We feel that
Dior is consciously referencing the age of Louis XIV at a time
when Charles de Gaulle was reasserting French grandeur.
LEFT: MÉMOIRE CHÉRIE, ELIZABETH ARDEN, 1950S.
OPPOSITE PAGE: DIORISSIMO, DIOR, 1956. BACCARAT.
FLOWERS BY CHRYSTIANE CHARLES.
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