Accademia del profumo. The candidates and the celebratory event

The Accademia del Profumo 2013 (Unipro Servizi Srl) awards ceremony is to be held Friday, March 8th (World Women’s day), in the Manzoni auditorium just a few steps away from Piazza Maggiore, Bologna.

The event will be hosted by beautiful Filippa Lagerbach, a familiar face of Italian television. Alongside her the protagonists of the event: producers and "noses", stylists and packaging designers, communicators and directors, all involved in the competition that awards the best perfumes of 2012, the relative packaging and communication campaigns. But even though only virtually present the judgement of the consumers who voted for most of the products competing will be decisive (others will be the prerogatives of the Technical and VIP juries, called upon to pronounce their verdict on the more professional aspects).
This year a full 32 perfumes were entered, including 17 women’s and 15 men’s scents. In the following pages we present the packaging of the same, which have the non-trivial task of seducing the consumer.

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Iris Nobile Sublime The new Acqua di Parma women’s perfume is inspired by the Florence of the Renaissance and derives its scent and values from the noble iris The sublime incarnated in the material weft of the silk and in the violet tones that feature in the packaging and in the presentation brochure (truly regal), demonstrating the power of color: yellow outside (the typical Acqua di Parma carton cylinder) and inside (the liquid that colors the trunco-conical bottle), combined with the delicate violet of the fabric that covers the perfume’s pedestal.

Armani Privé Figuier Eden A celebration of the fig tree, symbol of wisdom associated  with the goddess Athena, reopening the gates of Eden where the modest Mediterranean plant concealed the nudity of the sinners Adam and Eve. The new fragrance of the “Acque Armani Privé” sings of nature and evokes the  legendary gardens presented in the clear version of the packaging in the Armani Privé Cuir Noir men’s perfume: the die is cream colored, the plaque with the name of the perfume copper, the bottle transparent with the pebble top that frees the scent and a contrasting black.

Coco Noir A nighttime journey, an oriental destination, a stop-off in Venice, traveling within the soul. The ingredients of Coco Noir are kept in impenetrable and compact black of the lacquered glass and the shiny blank, broken by a squared bas relief engraved with the evocative name of the perfume and that of the mythical perfumier. If the fragrance is capable of guiding the senses along the visionary ways of the imagination, one only needs just a few characteristics of a minimal packaging to evoke another world.

Dahlia noir An architecture of sober lines and canonical proportions for the small, solid yet delicate bottle with its huge stopper crowned with light. The eternity of the beauty captured in the minimalists opulence of French luxury is found in all the characters of this hermetic bottle, that conceals the name of the perfume under the stopper, engraved on luminous metal frette. Other secrets: the black lacquered stopper illuminated by the mirror shiny silver profiles, the meat colored juice, the mystery of femininity fragile but strong at the same time,  the source of creative head of Givenchy Riccardo Tisci’s inspiration.

Florabotanica BalenciagaEvocation the botanical gardens of the 18th century, a sort of plant bestiary including the rarest and most exotic of plants, painted on the phantasmagorical blank of form and color. Cristobal Balenciaga thus presents his Florabotanica, but for the bottle surprisingly chooses the geometric and aseptic white and black of the laboratory, only “redeemed” by the colors that run along the sides of the squarish bottle. The large stripy stopper extends into  the floreal perfume like a test tube fathoming the secret essence of the flowers, expressing the encounter between the rigour of experimentation and the poetics of the creative spirit.

Gucci Première For the woman protagonist, that walks the red carpet and the scenes of life with the same nonchalance as a star of  the golden days. The gold of the lacquer that has turned the glass bottle into a solid ingot and the top into a designer plaque, from which two pendants dangle with the signature and the iconic clamp of the Florentine couturier. The carton offers a  gilded reinterpretation of the double intertwined Guccio Gucci ‘G’,  one of the bestknown decorative motifs in the world, and the gold on gold trademrk. In perfect cinema Oscar style.

L’Eau Froide Serge Lutens A simple and crystalline fragrance that freshens up and wraps the body like a flowing garment. Simple like its name the slim Liberty bottle typical of Serge Lutens perfumes, even slimmer and more audacious in the graphics. A shade of blue, the color of water and the cold, tinges the liquid and reverberates in the glass.

Mad Madame Exaggerated, fun, masterly: reflecting the crazy spirit of the perfume, the packaging of Mad Madame is made using a rich array of materials and perfect detail. Starting from the outer cylinder, covered with black and red silk and with an impertinent bow over it, up to the soft touch bottle, decorated with a thousand fancies and with a small shiny, heavy designer top over it. Chic by all means.

La petite Robe noire Guerlain French eroticism interpreted by a staff of maison Guerlain super-professionals. La petite Robe noire is fruit of the knowhow of the marketers, the nose Thierry Wasser, the illustrator duo Duntzel+Deygas and the mythical packaging designer Serge Manseau, who have created a good perfume and a great bottle: house-wardrobe for the skimpy and sexy cladding, also hanging from a coat-hanger on the candid Iggesund board carton.

La vie est belle Lancôme sings a song for life because of free of the bonds of conventions and entrusts its message to the extraordinary smile of Julia Roberts. And also lightens the pinkish powdered essence that hovers in the transparency of the glass, rising towards the cap that bears a symbolic pair of wings.

Marc Jacobs Dot Who is afraid of polka dots? Not Marc Jacobs, who dedicates a “juicy and succulent” perfume to the leitmotif, proposed in a pack that is a hymn to merriment. From the oversize box that relaunches the graphic and semantic elements, a round bottle with a bulky winged hood emerges: an excessive hat, joyful butterfly with a procession of young mother-of-pearl small butterflies, posed on the glass and on the gilded logo.

Madly Kenzo Kenzo has made a perfume for the happy woman full of life, and Ron Arad has incarnated the spirit with a colored packaging as deft as the flight of the  butterfly painted on the luminous facing of the case. Deft aboveall the delicate bottle that twists in on itself: a live body, where the succession of grooves along the profile multiplies the impression of movement that ends by reverberating into the deformed dispenser with the transparent stopper. The intense pink that animates the bottle fills the background and fades towards the head of the delicate figurette.

Bulgari Mon Jasmin Noir L’Eau Exquise A pack of rare elegance for the new arrival in the Mon Jasmin Noir line, of which L’Eau Exquise echoes the outline, the designer top and the organza ribbon that girds the neck of the bottle. The product also stands out for the delicate jasmine lacework that ripples along the base of the bottle, multiplying the flashes of the glass and the soft green reflections of the liquid. Extraordinary as ever the very classic carton, with its broad marbled facing, with the brand emerging in bas relief.

Bulgari Omnia Coral The new perfume of the Omnia Collection created by Alberto Morillas for Bulgari draws its inspiration from the natural sensual delight of red coral, and evokes the radiant and colored essence of summer. The fragrance, full yet delicate at the same time, makes merry, like the coral colored carton and the unmistakeable, by now classic double knot flacon, this too pink tinged.

Signorina Salvatore Ferragamo The romantic pale pink pack, the precious ancient frame that enhances the brand on the smooth face of the carton, the broad glass crystal front of the  bottle closed by the small gold head, the big double bow that evokes the old-fashioned beauty of  the good families of times gone by. With consummate skill Salvatore Ferragamo fields the harmony that made the success of Italian elegance as a canon of perfection, and the technological skill capable of incarnating the same in matter. Partners: Bormioli Luigi for the glass, Cerve for decorations and silkscreen, G. Candiani for the top and the PP shoulder with UV pinkish gold lacquer, Nastrificio Brianteo for the bow, Industrialbox for the 350 g Algro Design (Sappi) carton printed in 4 colors + hot process black and pinkish gold, with embossing and debossing.

So nude The utterly smooth sand and skin colored carton supports the tone-on-tone embossed logo and contains a shiny convex flacon. A surprising obliquely tilting stela, illuminated by the metal capsule; its shape, rounded and ergonomic, is made for being held in the hand.

Valentina Assoluto The Italian maison has entered for the Accademia communication award  presenting variant of its extraordinary bottle that last year launched Valentina. The same shape and fabulous stopper, the same hi-tech structure to attach the decorations to the container, but only one large decorative flower, tinged with intense pink.

Acqua di Giò Essenza by Armani turns fragrance and transforms the packaging in pure light, showing how white and black can express the sensuality of the Mediterranean. The difference, compared to the preceding Acqua, lies in the details: the silver plated metal plaque at the base of the glass acts as a mirror and reverberates flashes on the perfumed liquid; the new magnetic bearing the Armani logo opens and closes the bottle with a “click” with a simple twist of the hand. Very male.

Allure Homme Sport Eau Extrème Chanel has entrusted the image of its new men’s perfume that experiences the limit as a challenge to the sound of the sea and the harmonious movements of Hawaian Surfer Denny Fuller. Last element of an ascending climax that has origins in 1999 with Allure Home, Eau Extréme is presented in the classic essential bottle with softer rubber stopper created by Chanel. At the centre of the main face of the bottle lacquered in luminous grey, one has the adrenalinic charge of the wording Sport, red like the core of the carton.

Armani Privé Cuir Noir From the darkness of the carton little by little the thick lacework of an arabesqued grate emerges, “pierced” by the highlighted gold plaque bearing the perfume brand. Inside the same, a pure gold pebble rises from a mysterious black parallelepid and promises wonders. This introduces the new stage in the olfactory tale of Les Mille et Une Nuits, along the sensual trail of the opulent east, where luxury and rarity flow together. Source of inspiration, the sensuality of the leather, wild like an animal, sweet and silky like tanned leather

Dolce&Gabbana The One Sport Purity in its purest state, and that full of energy that has you fly and leads to victory. The pair of designers speak to the true sportspeople, those who love overcoming limits and matching up to others, taking on life looking ahead. Values incarnated in the essential and elegant flacon in glass and acrylic, the transparency of which confers a particular force to the wording and to the bright red of the brand and the diffuser.

Encounter Calvin Klein The play of broken lines that shape the bottle, the metal fret that stretches from the cap illuminating a blue glass evoking the dead of night, the heavy material that gives solidity alongside the soft resin of the squarish closure. Simple “ingredients”, sophisticated result for the packaging. Like the black carton, enlivened by the contrasts between shiny and matt and by the towering blades of light.

Déclaration d’un Soir The slim glass, sculptured in large faces with rounded corners, is tinged with the first shadows of the evening: detonator of emotions, filter of ardent love, Dèclaration d’un Soir by Cartier is reflected by a bottle with character, contained in a classic grey carton, like a combed flannel suit. Logo in passionate red, the frame in silver and the wording luminous.

Fan di Fendi pour homme Powerful, timeless, virile. The flacon is a monolith with the colors of the Fendi sisters, contrasted syntheses of tradition (glass) and modernity (Surlyn). Behind the crystal explodes the intense yellow of the liquid framed by the iconic double F topped by a “masculine” spray cap. The case anticipates the character, piercing the grey front with letters of light and revealing a spirit as yellow as the dawn.

Freedom Tommy Hilfiger Handsome and sporty, he has command of a ship (or a company), loves freedom, the open sea, limitless horizons. His scent expresses the most intimate nature and says it with the white of the die and the transparency of the bottle. And with the two-tone nautical rope crossing the broad front of the carton and of the glass, engraved also at the base of the shiny chromed cap with the logo of the US designer.

Greene Street Etro In the same blank made last year for Paisley, embroidered with a skimpy web of kashmir designs, Etro presents the new Greene Street. The bottle is different, showing off all the transparency of glass and rests on a base engraved with oriental motifs, in tune with the fragrant peppery symphony of oriental spicy notes.

Kokorico A tunafish tin? No. A film can? No: a box for perfumes (by Jean Paul Gaultier). Surprising, reusable, with a lid and inside coated with shock-proof material and outside sealed with a tamper evident film. And the bottle? My God… it’s a head! Lacquered, black, bearing the irreverent red brand topped by the dispenser. But seen from the side it has the form of man’s body: morphing effect and great stability.

Prada Luna Rossa Bottle and packaging by Yves Behzar are inspired by the excellence of the technolog the agility and the dynamic beauty of “extreme”  yachts. The power of the elements reflects in the materials and in the design, that communicate strength and sophistication together: in the metal cover opened by the vertical cuts which reveal the perfume within; in the tempestuous silvers of the bottle rent by the iconic red line, symbol of innovation. The packaging plays with the contrast of the textures: the upper   luminous metal grey and the rich soft black lower texture. In between, once again the red line, vectors of movement at the centre of the pack.

Pure Custo Barcelona Man Glam, pop and a fun atmosphere for the special edition of this perfume that shows off a packaging daring from all points of view. Starting off  from the silver and blue tin, lush with leaves and shadows, that replaces the traditional carton, and is made by Eurobox, mixing embossing, lithographic and finishing techniques. In turn the glass bottle is covered with an original mesh obtained by finely weaving a metalised matt black fabric, on which  the nickel label with the name of  the product is “stitched”. Complex too the cap, made of  three materials (POM, ABS and Surlyn) and topped by a small colored disk (blue in the men’s version entered for the competition).

Tom Ford Noir Black: impenetrable, mysterious, sophisticated, strong, true “cladding” of this men’s perfume. The dialectic synthesis between the intimate nature and the public image of a man, that comes in a squarish fumé slender bottle with ridged sides with the T and F of Tom Ford cut into them. The brand and the designer’s mark reproduced in super-clear silver draw the eye and multiply the light, like on the black ribbed blank.

Trussardi My Land Designed by architect Antonio Citterio in his first trial as perfume packaging designer, the My Land bottle stands out for its classy appeal and unique technological procedure, that has enabled the opening of the bottle to be positioned below the shoulder. A surprise also on the level of materials, with real leather, to protect the decorations on the side of the Pochet du Courval.

Versace Eros A Greek God - the God of Love - inspires the new men’s perfume created by Aurélien Guichard for Versace and offered in a phantasmagorical turquoise bottle: this too an intense and mythological color, like the Medusa symbol of the maison. Her fatal head stands out on the glass, at the centre of a labyrinth of ancient and mysterious geometrical signs, and seals the stopper in gilded metal. The same elements can be seen on the blank, playing on different levels of engraving and of the reliefs of the embossing.