Frank Gehry designs his first perfume bottle for Louis Vuitton with Les Extraits collection

An excess of beauty housing impermanence, Louis Vuitton has revealed their new Les Extraits perfume collection by the brand’s master perfumer, Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud, in sculptural bottles topped with crumpled aluminium designed by architect Frank Gehry. Bringing his flair of billowing architectural gems to the reduced scale of perfume bottles for the first time, Gehry captures in the distinct bottle’s essence and design, liberation, and absolute movement. “I wanted to approach the project from a sculptural point of view. To bring something different to perfume. It is not a finished geometric form, it is just movement. Visual movement with the added interest of ephemerality,” shares the celebrated Pritzker Prize winning architect.

The instantly captivating product design reveals itself as an homage to “movement”, its transparency and fluidity. “Inspired by Frank Gehry’s unique aesthetics based on movement and distortion, Jacques Cavallier Belletrud pushes hypersensitivity to the extreme, concentrating the quintessence of perfumery. Five fragrances deconstructing the very architecture of fragrance, the master perfumer revisits perfume’s major themes, twisting them, expanding them, and exaggerating certain facets, in order to reveal ultimate purity,” shares the French fashion luxury house.

Akin to the nautically inspired Fondation Louis Vuitton building in Paris, Gehry channels his passion for sailing, by expressing it tangibly in the perfume bottle, especially the top, expressed as a “transparent sail skimming through space. Taking the form of an imaginary metal flower, the cap reflects sea and spray, and above all, the absolute movement of life,” shares the brand.

The structure in Paris employs 3,600 curved glass panels to create the impression of 12 curving sails. The bottle’s design is an extension of the same, becoming its 13th sail. “Reproducing, through micro-architecture, the bulge of a boat’s sail, seafaring, hair blowing in the wind, Les Extraits Collection evokes the thirteenth sail. The Les Extraits Collection bottle reproduces, without imitating, the tension of those twelve sails,” the brand says.

The rounded, radiant and caressing bottom of the bottle is informed by the original one designed by Marc Newson. Gehry went on to alter and expand its lines, his gesture transforming a straight line into an ellipse and shaped curves that become an arc towards the top, as a see-through sail drifting on the water. Each bottle comes packed inside an ivory white cylindrical package with a tapered top, while LV's logo remains embossed on the bottle's side, accompanying the name of the perfume, as well as stamped on the hand-polished cap.

The Canadian-American architect has also designed the complimentary coffee brown fragrance trunk that snuggles the five flacons of the collection – Dancing Blossom, Cosmic Cloud, Rhapsody, Symphony and Stellar Times – “The new Flaconnier des Extraits designed by Frank Gehry celebrates Louis Vuitton’s heritage and trunk-making savoir-faire, showcasing the architect’s ability to create movement through static forms. Its rounded, supple shape perfectly houses all five bottles in Les Extraits Collection, while the crumpled metal details echo the bottle’s cap,” states Louis Vuitton.

“How do we make it so captivating that it catches the eye and says something both about the House and its contents? 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!”, Gehry observes.