Frank Gehry designs Louis Vuitton perfume bottle to make you say ‘Oh!’

Frank Gehry designs Louis Vuitton perfume bottle to make you say ‘Oh!’

This October, Louis Vuitton and Frank Gehry are coming together to launch a groundbreaking collection of perfumes. Les Extraits collection features five new fragrances by the brand’s master perfumer, Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud, in bottles designed by Gehry. Both figures are titans in their respective industries, but this Louis Vuitton perfume collaboration marks a new chapter for them both as they deconstruct and reshape their previous work.

For Cavallier-Belletrud, this means his first collection of perfumes from Louis Vuttion with no top, heart or base notes, the basic building blocks of a typical fragrance. ‘I wanted to venture where no one goes anymore. To reinvent the notion of an Extrait [the most highly concentrated form of perfume] in a contemporary way,’ he says.

For Les Extraits, the perfumer has reassessed perfume’s major families, ‘to give them a twist, expand them, exaggerate certain facets, and reveal purity. In revisiting chapters, florals, chypres, and ambers, you create movement and rounded, caressing forms every time.’

Those ‘rounded, caressing forms’ find their visual counterpart in Gehry’s fragrance bottle, his first ever. The bottle is a continuation, in miniature, of Gehry’s now iconic design of the Fondation Louis Vuitton. The nautically inspired building used 3,600 curved glass panels to create the impression of 12 sails colliding in a mass of fluid, wind-swept lines. This bottle, conceived as the 13th sail, echoes that movement with a curved glass body and a crumpled aluminium top that sways like fabric caught in the wind. A complementary leather case features similar, twisting shapes.

‘How do we make it so captivating that it catches the eye and says something both about the house and its contents?’ muses Gehry. ‘That’s how we started looking at these shapes. We wanted to create something that elicits emotion. That brings a sensation to life. That when you look at it, you say, “Oh!” Then when you smell it, you say, “Ah!”’ §

A Spark of Courage from Louis Vuitton’s Bravery High Jewellery Collection

Louis Vuitton’s Bravery high jewellery collection interprets the maison’s signatures in gemstones and precious metals to mark the 200th birthday of the man who became a legend

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Mr. Louis Vuitton’s birth in 1821. Born in the Jura region of France, Louis Vuitton was a teenager when he decided to embark on a journey on foot across France to Paris, where he would become a legendary master trunk-maker. On this note, in honour of his courageous spirit, the French maison created – among others – Bravery, a collection of 90 emblematic high jewellery pieces that celebrate and retrace that remarkable saga in a metaphorical manner, by reinterpreting the Louis Vuitton’s signatures in gemstones and precious metals.

Of particular note is the rarity of the gemstones used throughout the collection. Mind you, it took a three-year global search to source the sapphires, emeralds, rubies, diamonds and other gemstones used on the pieces so as to achieve the desired richness of colour. The stones are also enhanced by peerless jewellery know-how, along with the shimmering harmony of colour lit up by the fire of over 110 LV Monogram-cut diamonds – Louis Vuitton’s signature diamonds and a sparkling reincarnation of the Monogram flower.

“I was surprised that a fashion house like Louis Vuitton was created through the sheer courage of one young man,” remarks Francesca Amfitheatrof, Louis Vuitton’s Artistic Director for Watches and Jewellery. “Driven by his curiosity about the world, he embarked on that incredible journey across France. That’s why we have named this collection Bravery. It’s not a word often used in High Jewellery! Yet these notions of determination and adventure are intrinsic to Louis Vuitton, and we wanted to express them through this collection.” All that being said, we invite you to discover how the Bravery High Jewellery collection retraces Louis Vuitton’s remarkable saga in eight themes:

La Constellation d’Hercule

A tribute to the birth of Louis Vuitton on August 4, 1821, La Constellation d’Hercule references a constellation only visible at that time of year. It is depicted on a necklace of organic magnificence, whose unique pairing of tanzanites, Australian opals and tsavorites reveals all the splendour of its sparkle illuminated by a mist of LV Monogram Star and Flower-cut diamonds.

L’Élan Vital

Expressing the strength of character that led Louis Vuitton to leave his native Jura for Paris, Francesca Amfitheatrof has created this fluid, rope-like necklace using more than 2,500 brilliant-cut diamonds, which is reminiscent of the way trunks were carried on a journey.

L’ Aventure

To represent the 400km of roads and forests that separate the Jura region from Paris, this necklace intersperses Colombian emeralds in three rows of platinum, yellow gold and white gold which are entirely pavé-set with diamonds in Damier checkerboard stone marquetry. To top it off, the necklace is further enhanced by the presence of a 3+ carat LV Monogram Flower and a 5.21 carat DFL pear-shaped diamond of remarkable color and purity.

The Arrow

Both a metaphor for Louis Vuitton’s journey and a literal interpretation of the V in his name, the diagonally pavé-set Arrow necklace features a central V set with custom-cut rubies, sapphires and diamonds is a nod to the personal emblem of the founder’s grandson Gaston-Louis Vuitton.

Le Mythe

Reflecting on Louis Vuitton’s early use of his personal signature, Le Mythe is a multi-layered piece of jewellery combining several emblematic Louis Vuitton motifs: the Damier pattern, trunk lock-inspired details, studs, rope, and the now-iconic Monogram flower.

La Passion

Inspired by the mallettage that lines the interiors of the maison’s traditional trunks, this lattice necklace in white gold set with diamonds and a precious collection of 75 round rubies was designed to feel like a second skin.

Le Tumbler

Invented by Louis Vuitton in 1890, the patented unpickable Tumbler lock inspired Francesca Amfitheatrof to bring the mechanism’s angular shape to High Jewellery for the first time, reinterpreted in diamonds with Santa Maria-type cerulean aquamarines.

La Star du Nord

As an epilogue to this collection and the light that guides Louis Vuitton on his journey, this set depicts the metaphorical figure of the North Star with two rows of refined, graphic diamonds punctuated by a knot reminiscent of those used on the interior of trunks. Inspired by the night sky, it shows the way to a radiant, luminous future.

The Bravery high jewellery collection is further proof of Louis Vuitton’s unique ability to reinvent itself, drawing inspiration from the universal appeal of its founder. Above all, as a tribute to the Maison’s futuristic vision and a vibrant testimony to its values with its real masterpieces of suppleness and fluidity that adorned with an infinite number of precious details, Louis Vuitton has produced a magnificent celebration of a brilliant 200-year destiny.

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Rising star: Louis Vuitton’s Star Blossom jewellery collection

There is a joyful iridescence to jewellery that steals the shine from all else. It is this explosion of resplendent novelty that defines the unexpected talismans of gold and shimmering diamonds that are worshipped in the Star Blossom jewellery collection from Louis Vuitton. The collection embodies the monogram flower, which is an emblem of Maison Louis Vuitton, which became a symbol of femininity in the Star Blossom collection created in 2018. The collection reimagined the iconic star-shaped flower designed by Georges Vuitton in 1896. The collection is a glittering tribute to the star-shaped Monogram.

There is a joyful iridescence to jewellery that steals the shine from all else. It is this explosion of resplendent novelty that defines the unexpected talismans of gold and shimmering diamonds that are worshipped in the Star Blossom jewellery collection from Louis Vuitton. The collection embodies the monogram flower, which is an emblem of Maison Louis Vuitton, which became a symbol of femininity in the Star Blossom collection created in 2018. The collection reimagined the iconic star-shaped flower designed by Georges Vuitton in 1896. The collection is a glittering tribute to the star-shaped Monogram.

The bold audacity of its pointed contours, this quatre-foil, is the perfect complement to confident femininity—a delicate blossoming with a fiery star that seeks to carve out the untold tale of a new narrative. The flower with its characteristic pointed petals is showcased in six exquisite jewellery creations: pendants, ear studs, bracelet and a ring. They can be worn as solitary adornment or combined or layered as modern talismans of varying moods.

A nail fashioned out of white gold, evoking the Maison’s trunk-making heritage, lies at the centre of each motif. The collection now includes a vibrant, modern ornamental ear cuff (in picture below) crafted from diamonds and pink gold, that sensually cocoons the ear contour. The elegance, vitality and versatility of the collection enshrines the brand’s intuitive ingenuity when it comes to jewellery expertise.