Interview with Sylvie de France

As a bottle designer with more than 20 years of experience, Sylvie de France has worked for the biggest names in luxury and perfumery. For osMoz, she agreed to share her thoughts about her profession, her sources of inspiration and her creative vision when it comes to designing perfume bottles.

Sylvie, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the perfume bottles you have designed?
Each bottle was born of a meaningful encounter with a brand, based on communication, trust and above all a desire to make a beautiful bottle together. What I love about my job is bringing an emotional vocabulary and a bit of humanity into a business sector where the financial dimension is becoming preponderant. This vocabulary is an authentic expectation and a necessity in perfumery. As far as my method goes, I work in close collaboration with the brands: I try to decipher their key values, while staying true to their roots, their image and their needs.

What are your influences as a designer? Where do you find new ideas?
My influences come from sectors I have a sensitivity to: fashion, tableware, architecture and poetry. I draw my inspiration from emotions stored in my memory and triggered by a color, a shape, some music, a word or a chance encounter.

Which of your perfume bottles are you proudest of?
It’s very hard to choose, but four bottles were particularly significant to my career; they were turning points related to significant encounters: L’Eau d’Issey by Issey Miyake; Le premier parfum by Lolita Lempicka; Apparition by Emanuel Ungaro; Le parfum by Chantal Thomass.

Which one was the hardest to create?
Jean-Paul Gaultier’s first feminine was a real challenge in terms of technical innovation. The difficulty came from the house’s request for a volume study for a handsome stockman (n.b.: the mannequin used as a couture model). For me, there is no more complex ‘volume’ to deal with than the expression of the human body. I was 27, and that development process was a fabulous learning process about the technical constraints of glassmaking, thanks to talented engineers like Bernard Jumel.

More and more, perfume houses are soliciting architects and furniture designers to design their bottles. How do you feel about that?
If it leads to handsome creations, why not? Still, certain experiences have shown that it can be risky, and that designing bottles is a field in which experience is essential.

What other designer’s bottle do you wish you had created?
Off the top of my head, Daisy by Marc Jacobs comes to mind. It’s a lovely cross between appealing glasswork and that touch of fantasy and poetry luxury requires.

In terms of perfume bottles, what truly original new ideas (shape, feel, function…) do you see for the near future?
I dream of creating the most stunning bottle, that appeals to the greatest number of men and women, while at the same time being as ecologically responsible as possible so my great-grandchildren will be proud of me!