Positioning itself between the bespoke and limited edition markets, one specialized perfume company, l'Artisan Parfumeur, plans to introduce in January a line of single-edition perfumes - only one bottle of each will be made - to be sold exclusively through its flagship Paris store. The work of Bertrand Duchaufour, the in-house nose hired this year, the line, Mon Numéro, will be presented in one-off bottles designed by Pascale Riberolles, an artist and master glass blower, priced at about $20,000 for a 725-milliliter flask.
— From A Fragrance to Call Your Own at The New York Times. Note that the same article says that "perfumers now bring more than 300 new scents to market every year"...uh, did somebody lose count along the way?
Update: apologies, I linked to the wrong article! That'll teach me not to post before I've had my first cup of tea. Here is the correct one: New scents crowd thriving perfume field, at the International Herald Tribune.
Holy s***!
Is the jus made of unfiltered unicorn giggles?
LOL! It must be.
I think this is a really stupid idea. And I'm rarely that blunt.
Why would you spend $20,000 on a single-edition perfume that was not made for you specifically instead of just having a scent custom-blended for you by Duchaufour? Or Kurkdjian or any of the big guys.
Its ridiculously absurd.
WOW! This is pricey…..
I think MarkD has the right idea, better to have something custom (if one has that kind of cash) that you could reorder vs. something that would be very limited.
MarkDavid, I find all of these luxe custom scents absurd — I've got luxury fatigue
It does seem funny that Francis Kurkdjian will come to you for half the price!
Maybe they meant 300 scents per perfumer!!
I'm thinking they meant 300 scents per year that are worth unscrewing the cap and sniffing at all.
Man, posts like this make me realize what a bottom-feeder I am in the economic scheme of things. Then again, I have a lot of company (98% of the country, maybe?)
A question, if only 1 bottle is made, there are no testers and hence you can't smell what you buy until you have bought it?! You better pray you love it!
Hmmm… wonder if there were that many??
I'm a bottom feeder too.
Presumably they let you smell it?!? They've got to! But I guess you have to go to the boutique in Paris to do so.
In addition, who's ever going to use up 725ml before it goes bad? Perhaps you could swig it out of the lovely hand-blown flask…
that is what it is all about. I was once a mainstream fragrance rep and then i was lucky enough to work for L'artisan for 2 years. They are true to what they say. great product and knowledge comes from this company. If i could i would have them make me a custom fragrance.
Lilydale, agree, it's a silly amount of perfume.
It's one of my favorite niche brands, still, I've got no interest in projects like this. But obviously you're not alone, I'm sure many people would love to have a custom L'Artisan scent.
Is it just me, or is that orange perfume bottle hideous?It lookes like an orange tinted cow pat! I sure hope that they are not using this to hold their $20000 one off perfume.
I'm not a fan of orange, but otherwise I kind of liked it, especially the (rock?) cap. But each one will be different.
Hadn't seen the article but had to look since I LOLd @ “orange tinted cow pat.” I love orange art glass, but I'll stick to the collection I have of items that cost less than $100 each, thanks. If money were no object, I'd love it though (along with the Duchaufour creation inside).
And of course I had to look up more work by that glass artist. Maybe something like the following would be more to someone's taste?:
http://tinyurl.com/5wcnf4
Oooh…I want #6 in that slideshow. #4 is gorgeous too. Cool bottles!