Wednesday, September 11, 2024
How Objets de Convoitises created the Karl Ikonik bottle for Interparfums
Since 2003, Objets de Convoitises has been supporting luxury brands with their visual identity, packaging, and retail projects. The agency crafted a number of striking designs over the past few years, most recently the Karl Ikonik bottle devised as an avatar of designer Karl Lagerfeld. We met Alnoor Mitha de Bharat, its founder.
Premium Beauty News – How did it all start for the bottle designed for Karl Lagerfeld’s new fragrance?
Alnoor – When we suggested the design for the new Karl Ikonik bottle for Karl Lagerfeld, under licence from Interparfums, all glassmakers turned it down. It posed a number of problems: too many details, lack of stability… Also, it was too high. I asked each of the manufacturers we had contacted to set out their constraints in terms of manufacturing capacity and tooling. Then, I reworked the design to go beyond the limits specified by Heinz Glas, the glassmaker we chose. That is how the bottle we are selling today came about.
For Caron, I had also received reservations from glassmakers, regarding the stacking and thinness of the bottles. Once the constraints have been identified, our mission is to get round the difficulties by optimising the design without altering it. This is one of our agency’s great strengths.
Premium Beauty News – How do you innovate when it comes to creating a perfume bottle meant to be produced on a large scale?
Alnoor – My cross-disciplinary profile is an advantage. I studied engineering and I started out in fashion. Now, I am one of Roche-Bobois’s official designers. My clients know this, so they often send me 360° projects, like Caron, Boucheron, Jimmy Choo, or Essential Parfums.
I have a very wide angle of vision. Some groups with in-house design studios ask me for advice to bring them creative innovation, whether it is for a bottle model or POS advertising. They seek other ways of thinking, and an outside, independent perspective. I am in a position to offer them a narrative pattern and, above all, to bring the design process to life.
Premium Beauty News – What is the current state of innovation in packaging and bottling?
Alnoor – In glassmaking, there has been major progress in glass recycling and production, with more fluid and transparent pastes. Containers are getting lighter to minimize the carbon footprint.
The quality of moulds has also evolved: now, it is possible to obtain increasingly finer and angular finishes. The Karl Ikonik bottle could not have been produced five or ten years ago. The glass trim is now enriched through the addition of metal, accessories, or exclusive materials and decorations. I am thinking of Dries Van Noten’s perfume collection, for example. As regards caps, the approach is also different: glass can replace Zamak. Wooden caps emerged a few years ago, but luxury was not completely ready for them. The eye changes, and so do the directions in which we work.
To me, there has been more innovation in secondary packaging: in papers, textures, added materials such as black or coloured cork, wood, mycelium for box inserts, and even pulp for certain types of packaging.
Source : Premium Beauty News