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.
Premium Beauty News – What is design mainly focused on in perfumery nowadays?
Alnoor – The notion of a lasting bottle comes from niche brands. These are statutory bottles which express the brand’s identity rather than that of a perfume.
At the same time, I have seen figurative bottles emerge, or image bottles like Paco Rabanne’s. These bottles appeal to a target group in search of hedonism and fun. Karl Ikonik supports this approach. Gen Z does not appreciate the same brands as boomers, and the market is bound to keep changing. Different approaches will be used for different targets.
Premium Beauty News – What is your take on AI and its application in the field of design?
Alnoor – AI is highly enriching in terms of pure image. It saves time on 3D bottle representations and provides realistic transparency and a beautiful rendering. It is also a source of inspiration which opens up the chakras! However, having tested it on bottle designs, I could see that its proposals can be incoherent, because they are unfeasible.
Premium Beauty News – What is your approach to design?
Alnoor – I focus on the semantics of the product, as well as on the brand’s codes and heritage. In addition to the marketing message, I analyse the colour, texture, graphic and visual elements embodying the brand, and which speak to the collective unconscious. For Caron, for example, I made the broken “O” in the logo appear very clearly in the shape of the bottles themselves. For the bottle of I Want Choo (Interparfums), I wanted to link Jimmy Choo shoes and accessories to the wider world of fashion. The volume of the bottle reminds of the silhouette of a dress, while retaining elements of style, like gold glitter. The bottle is not limited to the world of shoes. It also evokes femininity.
Premium Beauty News – How is your agency organised?
Alnoor – The agency brings together about ten experts who work in three departments: volume design, graphic design, and retail architecture. As the design director, I am at the core of the projects. There is no intermediary between our clients and myself. I like to establish a long-term, almost intimate relationship with brands.
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