the new perfume from kenzo, i discovered, was designed by japanese designer kenya hara.  hara indeed used a bottle he had previously designed for hakkin sake as a basis for this. he describes the process of designing the bottle, and i must say i relate to so much of what he says:

“i designed a very simple bottle for sake called hakkin. and i realized what i was expected to do here. what i had in my mind may have been an image of design for 720ml. by changing the size, the liquor bottle can become that of perfume or vice versa without altering the shape or design.

“the bottle was beginning to form its shape but we then needed to work on the package. perfume is usually displayed on the shelf in accumulated manner so the boxes needed some creativity without over doing them. after consideration, we decided to make the box with a slight angle of inclination toward the top. by doing so, there creates some space for lights to come in from above when the boxes are displayed together. this very minor change created a tremendous effect to the box and the display, i persuaded strongly to use this idea for the box. It actually turned out to be a bit difficult to make this box with inclination but it came out nicely at the end thanks to the package manufacturer’s efforts. the package may look simply plain, but we carefully planned every detail such as paper which was chosen by its touch and texture. for the paper, we decided to use something with special features which i created in the past. this paper is unique in a way that letters become dented and semitransparent after printing. we wanted to use this paper for the box and found something of similarity in european market.”

“kenzo is a brand of colors, but i only use colors when necessary because i am a designer of “emptiness”. of course i use colors as communication method such as using red for fire extinguisher or for essential buttons on machines, but i minimize the usage as much as possible for other purposes such as design. if i am to use metal, i will use its original metallic color. when using the glass, paper or whatever the material would be, i will use their original colors. upon printing words on the product, t will use black prints without any question. as I am always piling up simple ideas as such for my designs, the design that i presented for this project too was not colorful.” by dd