Guerlain’s Annual Springtime Rendez-Vous: Muguet Millésime 2023 Reborn
This year, in honor of the Bee Bottle’s 170th anniversary, Guerlain luxury Maison announces a collaboration like no other.
Guerlain Muguet Millésime 2023 is an exquisite Exceptional Piece imagined by not one but two extraordinary contemporary artisans: ceramicist Karen Swami and Haute Couture embroiderers Les Ateliers Vermont. A poetic lucky charm for Guerlain’s annual springtime rendez-vous, honoring French savoir-faire.
For over 110 years, it has been a ritual for Guerlain to celebrate the lucky-charm flower with delicate eau de toilette: Muguet. The tender, springtime scent of lily-of-the-valley was interpreted in turn by the House’s successive Perfumers: Jacques Guerlain in 1908, Jean-Paul Guerlain in 1998, then Thierry Wasser who composed the current version of Muguet in 2016.
In collaboration with ceramicist Karen Swami and Haute Couture embroiderers Les Ateliers Vermont, Guerlain Muguet Perfume is reborn for 2023 in a celebration of one of France’s oldest traditions: the giving of a spring of lily-of-the-valley as a lucky charm on May 1st.
For Muguet Millésime 2023, ceramicist Karen Swami imagined a strikingly realistic ceramic bell, transforming the Bee Bottle into a flower. Her oversized lily-of-the-valley is completed with a delicate tulle bow hand-embroidered by the artisans of Haute Couture: Les Ateliers Vermont.
“In tandem, we’ve succeeded in conjuring a sprig of lily-of-the-valley in a way that is both symbolic and rather realistic.” – Karen Swami
Recreating the lily-of-the-valley fragrance is a genuine olfactory feat as it is known as “mute”, it is impossible to capture its essence.
It is to the Perfumer’s virtuosity that we owe the reinvention of its wonderful but oh-so-fleeting perfume in all its facets. Composed by the Master-Perfumer Thierry Wasser, Guerlain’s Muguet takes on green and rosy facets that form a vernal setting for the lush floral materials. Jasmine sambac absolute, rose essence and absolute, are drawn from harvest especially selected by the perfumer for the delicacy and pureness of their extracts. At the heart of the bouquet arises the strikingly olfactory illusion of a freshly picked sprig.
To render the suppleness and colour of the leaf, Guerlain turned to les Ateliers Vermont, a Parisian Haute Couture embroidery house since 1956.
The virtuosos of this artistic craftsmanship created a bow in tender green tulle edged in green thread, standing for the leaves of the flower imagined by Karen Swami. Embroidered with delicate sprigs of lily-of-the-valley glinting like pearls of dew on each of the leaves and after several hours of meticulous work, this fabulously Haute Couture, strikingly poetic bow is tied to the neck of the Bee Bottle.
Karen Swami, ceramic artist, shapes elements to create pieces blending plays of shadow, modernity and perfect lines. It is this quest for purity that inspires the precious 2023 Millesime of Guerlain’s Muguet: that of a natural form as perfectly streamlined, an oversized lily-of-the-valley flower made of pure white biscuit in tributes to the luck-charm bell.
To produce the piece, Karen Swami collaborated with the porcelain workshops of Arquié, a Limoges manufacture that has been awarded the “Entreprises du patrimoine vivant” (“Living Heritage Companies”) label. Each of the 5,000 flowers is therefore the outcome of contemporary creativity and ancestral knowhows.
This limited and numbered edition of 5,000 pieces of 125 mL is presented with a 20 mL travel spray in its white leather sheath, as well as a funnel to pour the fragrance into the spray.
