ceramic artist Archives

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.

An encounter between the art of the Guerlain Perfumer and the excellence of French savoir-faire.; @Guerlain Muguet Millésime 2023

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.

The traditional idea of fashion week and fashion shows got canceled. Kris Van Assche says it is a once in lifetime occasion to actually give people the background of a new collection.

Paris Fashion Week Men’s Spring/Summer 2021 went all-digital in the Covid-19 context. LVMH fashion houses like Berluti rethought the presentations of their ready-to-wear collections as runway events were replaced by novel online shows and special films.

Inspired by volcanoes and exotic plants, the exuberant signature of ceramic artist Brian Rochefort blends intuitively with the augmented natural texture and colour language exercised at Berluti luxury fashion Maison.

This season, Berluti’s Artistic Director Kris Van Assche adapts to the challenges of our moment in time in a long-distance collaboration with the ceramic artist and sculptor Brian Rochefort, the first creative collaboration on ready-to-wear for Berluti. This new collection whets the curiosity of Berluti aficionados as Kris Van Assche takes a familiar aesthetic and transports it with a new proposal, taking sartorial creations into unexplored territory.

The collection of garments and accessories will be fully unveiled and launched in stores in January 2021.

Berluti approaches the concept of collaborations from a supplementary and illuminating perspective. When, in 2019, Kris Van Assche partnered with the furniture house Pierre Jeanneret, the collaboration illustrated aspects of craft and colour shared by the two parties. For the evolving clientele of Berluti, the approach manifests in curiosity by association: a new proposal within an aesthetic to which the client already relates. In his collaboration with Brian Rochefort, Kris Van Assche builds on the character of Berluti in a gesture of connectivity and communication key to the time in which we find ourselves.

“Right now, collaboration feels like a meaningful way to create something new. As something of a ceramics nerd, I have admired Brian Rochefort’s expression for a long time, and am fortunate enough to own one of his works. I couldn’t be more excited to interpret his vision through the lens of Berluti,” comments Kris Van Assche. Creative Director of Berluti.

The behind-the-scenes of the collaboration was previewed in a video between the two collaborators, screened online as part of Digital Paris Fashion Week on 9 July 2020. The film can be accessed on YouTube.com/Berluti.

For 2020, Berluti also presented Signature – The maison’s first patterned canvas created by Kris Van Assche.

Inspired by the archives, the Signature Canvas blends the new Berluti logo, taken from the shoe tree of the very first pair of shoes made by Alessandro Berluti, and the undulating strokes of the iconic scritto motif, a tribute to the art of calligraphy created by Olga Berluti.

The Signature pattern is engraved on a black textured fabric that resists everyday use and is completed with Berluti’s trademark finishings – including leather details embellished with bootmaker studs that bring a metallic sparkle to each piece.

This new collection offers a variety of briefcases, cross-body bags, clutches, totes, backpacks, travel bags, and a sailor bag – all featuring the new emblematic of the Maison.