Nina Ricci’s L’Air du Temps, the most contemporary of the classics, the six-flask perfume, is making a comeback in 2013 in a totally new format imagined by interior architect Olivia Putman.
Born in 1948 by the will of one man, Robert Ricci, L’Air du Temps has traversed the ages: today one flask sells every fifteen seconds. At the time, it was a true innovation. A fresh, airy scent that breezed past the rigid rules and heavy scents of post-war perfumers. Celebrating a light and careless femininity, l’Air du Temps is composed of a bouquet of over thirty scents: bergamot, carnation, rosewood, sandalwood, cedar… its fresh notes intoxicate with a message that traverses time while its very name evokes timelessness as well. “My goal has always been to give reality the colors of a dream”, confides Robert Ricci.
The designer wanted a flask for his perfume that would be as elegant as its contents. Joan Rebull designed the very first in 1948. The dove, symbol of peace, softness, and nobility, was already present on the “Flacon Soeil”, discreetly engraved on the cap. In direct collaboration with the designer, Marc Lalique created the first crystal style in 1951, representing the mythical pair of doves “celebrating peace and recovered love”. Elected “flask of the century” in 1999, it would go on to be used by Andy Warhol to create the window display of a New York department store several years later. Throughout the years, several artists, including Phillipe Starck, have reinterpreted the object and brought their own contribution to the immortality of this oh-so-particular perfume.
Now in 2013, it’s come to Olivia Putman, designer, interior architect, and daughter of Andrée Putman, to bring us her interpretation of the celebrated Lalique flask, that she will be decorating with blue Klein edgings. Blue “like the sky and the sea that evoke infinity and liberty”, she says. A sober, elegant case loyal to the rules of the brand, perfected by a checkered box, the Putmans’ signature.
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