Chapter 2_Part2 - marc rosen associates

A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
KAISER KARL
LAGERFELD
1978
A notable development in the late 1970s was the entry of the
big American cosmetic companies into the international
fragrance field by licensing the names of European fashion
designers. It was a direct challenge to the French on their own
turf. One of my early assignments at Arden was a men’s
fragrance for Karl Lagerfeld. I went to Paris to meet him.
At that time, he worked principally for Chloé, a French ready-towear women’s fashion house founded in the 1950s. Chloé
specialized in soft, feminine styles and appealed to a younger, chic
clientele. Arden had launched the Chloé fragrance which I
worked on expanding over the years. It was Lagerfeld who
made the Chloé line hugely successful in the ’70s, giving it a
look that was right in tune with the culture of the day. When
Lagerfeld wanted his own fragrance for men, the company let
him put his name on it. I think they later regretted that decision,
because Lagerfeld went on to eclipse Chloé by moving to
Chanel soon after. When I arrived in Paris, Karl showed me a
preliminary idea – it was black with an orange cap and had a
ring on top. It was strange, but that ring caught my attention.
It was a provocative feature; you could put your finger through it
to pull off the top. I thought immediately of a hand grenade. It
was a scent bomb. I designed a simple rectangular bottle with
rounded corners. One of its unique features at the time was that
it had two textures, frosted on the sides with clear glass on the
front and back. It looked like a window, revealing the liquid
inside. The bottle was smooth and pleasant to hold. The shiny
silver cap with the circular ring was the salient feature. A silver
logo was stamped on a camel-colored box with gray edges, like
classic men’s suiting. Lagerfeld for men was my first sophisticated
fragrance project. I was thirty-one and on my way.
ABOVE AND OPPOSITE PAGE: LAGERFELD
[ELIZABETH ARDEN] 1978. MARC ROSEN.
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A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
KL
Karl Lagerfeld
1982
At that time, Lagerfeld had furnished his Left Bank apartment
on the Place Saint Sulpice with the best examples of French art
deco furniture. It is hard for us to imagine now, but it was a
style still considered hopelessly out-of-date, and it was really
reviled until 1972 when the sale of the collection of the
couturier Jacques Doucet created a sensation. Yves Saint
Laurent and Pierre Bergé bought many of the best things, and
prices shot through the roof. Suddenly, art deco was all the
rage. For me, it was all new, and it was a revelation to visit
Lagerfeld’s apartment filled with these exquisite things I had
never seen before. A whole world of great design!
But Karl is quickly bored, and he later sent it all to auction. He
then moved to a grand mansion on the rue de l’Université with
fabulous 18th-century boiseries where he displayed his new
collection of 18th-century furniture. He eventually sold that
one, too. Karl appreciates quality; and he does nothing by half
measures.
Karl Lagerfeld was the Wunderkind of French fashion, so when
he left Chloé to concentrate on his own KL label, we were
eager to do a new women’s fragrance for Karl. One morning, at
the beginning of the project, we got a phone call from Karl.
He was greatly excited. It was late in the evening in Paris, and
he had come home after a day at Versailles. He told us that he
had been walking in the gardens of the Petit Trianon – the
most exquisite example of Louis XV architecture in the world
– when he looked up and saw the Concorde in the sky above
it. The plane was new, sleek and elegant.The pride of the
French and British. Everyone thought it was the future; we
could all fly to Paris for lunch. Karl said he had been so
moved to see the best example of 20th-century design flying
ABOVE: KARL LAGERFELD AND ARLENE DAHL.
OPPOSITE PAGE: KL, PHOTOGRAPH,
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KARL LAGERFELD, 1982, MARC ROSEN.
A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
over the masterpiece of the 18th century – the two present in a
single moment. That conjunction was what he wanted to
express in his fragrance; it had to somehow unite old and new.
“Expect the Unexpected” would be the tag line. It was an
A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
alluring concept, but how the devil was I supposed to interpret
it in a perfume bottle? We needed a dazzling bottle that would
symbolize Karl and his philosophy, that would synthesize the
traditional and the radically new. It was a tall order.
ABOVE: THE STATUE OF LIBERTY AND THE EIFFEL TOWER: FROM PARIS TO
NEW YORK. A DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD IN W MAGAZINE. AUTOGRAPHED BY
KARL, A GIFT GIVEN TO ME AT THE LAUNCH. KARL LAGERFELD.
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OPPOSITE PAGE: THREE WOMEN AND TWO FANS. LITHOGRAPH.
KARL LAGERFELD. SIGNED: “67 KARL LAGERFELD”.
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A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
LEFT: KARL LAGERFELD WITH
HIS SIGNATURE FAN.
OPPOSITE PAGE: PRESS
PHOTOGRAPH FOR KL.
I seized upon the idea of creating a bottle
that looked like a modern crystal fan. I set
to work and asked myself exactly what a fan
represented to me. The fan seemed to be an
obsolete 19th-century accessory that we
could make our own. Karl had already used
fans as an accessory with some of his
models. I thought of Southern ladies on
their verandas ventilating themselves on
sultry days. I pictured Scarlett O’Hara. In
that context, the fan was a marker that stood
for the charm of a lost world; it, too, was
“gone with the wind.” I quickly realized
that, in a more graceful time, the fan was
actually “a weapon of flirtation.” There had
once been a whole language of gesture
associated with the fan; it had figured
hugely in games of seduction. There were
ways to open it, to snap it closed, or to
flutter it that spoke volumes. A woman
could hide her face behind a fan so that a
man could see only her eyes.The fan
implies a secret that it both designates and
conceals. A woman with a fan always seems
to taunt us with her enigma.When fully
open, a folding fan forms a half circle
supported on radial sticks. There are many
intermediate stages between fully opened
and closed, giving rise to an infinite
potential for mobility.
A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
My fan bottle is mimetic, but abstract and very modern,
too. It has an art deco feeling. I took the semi-circular
shape of a fully open fan and interpreted it in clear glass.
The blades, radiating from a central point are incised in
the glass, and the transparency permits us to see them
repeated on the other side. That complicated linear
interplay conveys a sense of movement, giving a spirited
liveliness to the design. I challenged Pochet et du
Courval, the venerable French perfumery glass
manufacturer (founded in 1623), to give each ray of the
fan a sharp edge, a feature I felt was extremely important,
but that was difficult to achieve in glass. It was in
keeping with the deco design, and was something the
consumer would feel when she picked it up, a hint of
danger, almost as if it might cut her fingers. I also asked
Pochet to make sure that the flat gold cap lay directly on
top of the bottle, that the neck not protrude at all.
Initially, they told me it was impossible, but eventually
they invented a way to invert the neck inside the bottle.
The stopper went inside the shoulder of the bottle. That
was something that had not been thought of before and
that is the kind of detail that makes all the difference.
When I showed Karl the Lucite model, he was thrilled.
“I am a fan of fans!” he announced. We originally
planned to call the perfume Fanatique which would
have been perfect, but the introduction by Avon of
Fantasque for Louis Féraud at about the same time made
that impossible, so we went with his initials, KL, that
were also the name of his fashion line.
A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
The launch was spectacular. Fittingly, considering the initial
image Karl had given me, it was held at Versailles. The open
fan looks like the setting sun, and the palace and gardens at
Versailles are oriented towards the West. The sun sets directly
along the central axis above the farthermost basin into which
the chariot of Apollo is plunging. The evening began with a
performance by the Ballet de Monte Carlo in the jewel-box
Théâtre Gabriel with Princess Caroline of Monaco in
attendance. Afterwards we strolled through the Galérie des
Glaces, from which we watched a display of fireworks over the
gardens, and we then went on to a lavish dinner in the Salon
d’Hercule. The KL launch was the kind of extravaganza that
used to be staged for a new perfume.The press loved it. There
was a double page spread in W magazine with the Eiffel
Tower on one side and the Statue of Liberty holding a fan on
the other. Lagerfeld was thrilled with my bottle design and
sent me congratulatory notes and drawings.
The ad, a photograph of a woman with her face provocatively
half-hidden by the fan bottle, was memorable. After the fan
bottle appeared, Karl himself would so frequently be
photographed carrying a fan that it became his personal
signature. It was a daring choice, as we now tend to think of
the fan as a strictly feminine accoutrement. Along with his
cardigan and high, starched collars, it reinforced the dandified
and ambiguously androgynous image he affected. KL was the
most successful launch of the year and the bottle won me my
first FiFi (1984), the Academy Award of the fragrance industry.
OPPOSITE PAGE: LETTER FROM NANCY TUCK GARDINER, THE FORMIDABLE
BEAUTY, HEALTH AND SPECIAL PROJECTS EDITOR, TOWN & COUNTRY MAGAZINE.
RIGHT: ADVERTISEMENT FOR KL. PHOTO: ARTHUR ELGORT.
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A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
fragrance line. There was a close connection between Lagerfeld
and Fendi because they had hired him to design their fur line.
Fendi furs were unique; they used many different animals,
treated the fur with unusual dyes, and worked them in new
ways. Fendi furs were light, chic and fashion forward. They
were definitely not your granny’s mink.
During the time I worked on the project, I got to know the
Fendi sisters so well I felt like the Fendi brother. We talked on
the phone every morning, and I flew to Rome once a month
for a year, which I loved. I learned a lot from them, particularly
from their meticulous attention to the smallest details. I learned
that packaging is more than designing a great bottle, it is
creating a brand.
CARNEVALE FENDI
In the early ’80s, Fendi was a name to reckon with. What had
once been a small fur and leather business in Rome became a
worldwide phenomenon when the five Fendi sisters took over
the family business. The sisters were great businesswomen.
They were totally focused on their brand, and they worked
together as a team; each had a job to perform. They all had big
houses in Rome, and they entertained beautifully. Carla was
my favorite. She was tough and relentlessly obsessive over what
was and what wasn’t “Fendi.” I came to respect her point of
view, even though there were times when I wanted to strangle
her. I had been delighted when, thanks to Lagerfeld’s
enthusiasm and help, Arden signed a license deal for the Fendi
ABOVE: THE FENDI SISTERS: ANNA, ALDA, CARLA, PAOLA AND FRANCA.
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RIGHT: FENDI FOR WOMEN, FENDI [ELIZABETH ARDEN]
1985. PIERRE DINAND.
When Arden signed the agreement with Fendi, a women’s scent
was already in the works, but it had yet to be launched. The
handsome bottle was created by Pierre Dinand, a great package
design consultant of the period. He did wonderful work in the
’70s and ’80s, and it was his example that inspired me to leave
Arden a few years later to start my own independent design firm.
The president of Elizabeth Arden, an Italian-American from
Boston, was rather nonplussed by the high-powered Fendis who
spoke no English. As I had bonded immediately with the
charismatic sisters, I was given the added responsibility of PR
launches for the Fendi fragrance all over the world. These would
be huge events, and I relished the challenge.
In those days, Bloomingdale’s was the store to launch a
fragrance in New York. They had given Fendi fashion its own
corner window on Lexington Avenue. One day, Carla called up
to announce that I should go to the president, Marvin Traub,
and talk him into using a Fendi shopping bag, printed with the
beautiful Fendi fragrance ad that had been created by my
colleague Paulette Dufault and the brilliant photographer Sheila
Metzner. This was going to be a tough one. Bloomingdale’s
was famous for its classic “big brown bag” shopping bag. I went
in with some trepidation, but the Fendi clout was so strong that
I got him to agree. The other thing he agreed to do was to let
us install specially loomed carpeting with the double F logos
down the whole B-way – the center aisle on the cosmetics
floor. What a coup! When the sisters came to New York for
the launch, I went out to dinner with them and, after dinner,
although it was quite late, we decided to stop by
Bloomingdale’s to check out the carpets. I expected them to
be thrilled but, alas, the stars were crossed! They peered
through the windows with smiles and turned back to me with
frowns. The color palette was off! They insisted that Arden pay
to reweave the carpet. In three days! Otherwise, they said, they
would refuse to attend the launch. That is how fanatical they
were about every detail. They were adamant and obsessive, but
I learned a big lesson. The devil is in the details.
A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
We celebrated at a lavish Carnevale Fendi, a party that I
organized at the Burden Mansion on 91st Street, a house
designed for a Vanderbilt granddaughter in 1902, a very grand
setting. I hired a troop of dancers who lined the stairs wearing
gossamer and spangles, surrounding the guests with the spirit of
the Roman Carnival. It was all very much like Fellini’s Juliet of
the Spirits. Lots of celebrities were in attendance that night,
including Anthony Quinn and his wife,Yolanda. I seated the
actor between my wife, Arlene Dahl, and Gina Lollobrigida.
Yolanda sneaked a look at the place cards and immediately
complained,“Tony only likes to sit with me.” I doubted that
were true, but, in an act of self-sacrifice, I did make a seating
A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
change: I placed Yolanda next to me. I know Anthony Quinn
was grateful and that he had a great time.
Our next Fendi launch would be in San Francisco. Elizabeth
Arden had a Red Door salon in San Francisco, and all the society
ladies went there. I knew that the major event of the social
season for them is opening night at the opera. We arranged to
have a tent in the courtyard of the opera house that night for a
gala dinner to follow the performance. One of the leading
figures in the city in those days was Denise Hale, a lady with
quite a checkered background. Born in Serbia, she had been
married to an Italian gangster and then to film director Vincente
Minnelli, but she ended up as the wife of Prentis Cobb Hale, a
department store magnate. She was an avid couture client and
always wore Ferré. One day, she phoned me at my office; she
said with her thick accent,“I am a close friend of the Fendis, I
want to organize a luncheon while they are in town.” It would
be a ladies’ lunch at Stars, the chic restaurant at the time. We had
programmed every day and night very fully, but Denise insisted,
so I thought,“Why not?” The opera evening went beautifully; it
was an enormous, glittering event, the talk of the season. Some
time later, back in New York, I received a note from Denise Hale.
She enclosed a bill for the luncheon. One of the wealthiest
women in San Francisco expected Arden to pick up the tab!
Los Angeles has a different style. There I decided we needed an
Italian-themed venue and was told about the Virginia Robinson
gardens. The house was small, too small for our party, but the
huge Tuscan garden with its pool disguised as a water feature
would be perfect. We were assured that it never rained in LA in
September. We were good to go. The Fendis loved movie stars,
so we made the evening a benefit for the Actors’ Fund, a popular
cause. Arlene and I made sure there were many celebrities from
the film community on the guest list. Television stars, too —
Carroll O’Connor of All in the Family and Larry Hagman of
Dallas. Their wives were all chairs of the event. To add to the
Roman atmosphere, I rented lots of classical columns from 20th-
ABOVE: ANTHONY QUINN LOOKS NONPLUSED AS GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA
CHATS WITH CARLA FENDI AT THE CARNEVALE FENDI PARTY IN NEW YORK.
58
OPPOSITE PAGE: MARY MARTIN, ARLENE DAHL, CARLA FENDI AND LARRY HAGMAN
AT THE FENDI LAUNCH PARTY IN LOS ANGELES.
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A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
Century Fox and arranged to have actors dressed as gladiators
and to float waterlilies in the pool to make it look like a garden
basin. The arrangements were in good hands and I had no
worries – until I arrived. The sky was overcast; it looked like
rain. “It never rains in September, don’t worry,” I was told. It
was too late to rent a tent; I had to pray. Then I saw the pool; it
was phosphorescent green. Algae. It looked poisonous. “Don’t
worry, it won’t be noticeable at night.” Well, they were right
about that. But a bigger worry was that there were no guests;
no one had replied to the invitation! Again, I was told not to
worry – no one in LA bothered to RSVP, they would just show
up. I organized a team that afternoon to call up everyone who
had been invited so we could arrange the seating. In the end, it
didn’t rain, the party was attended by all the glitterati, and the
algae was undetectable. But there had been some anxious
moments. At each of the Fendi dinners, there was a tambola,
Italian bingo, to win a fabulous prize: a summer ermine coat
from Fendi. It was the coat featured in the fragrance ad, and it
was a typical Fendi creation. Ermine had not been popular for
years because, though it is velvety, it is delicate and not very
warm. And only the white winter pelts had ever been used.
The Fendis decided to use summer ermine, a season when the
fur turns an ivory-beige. It was new and it was beautiful.
Arlene attended the party with me. She wore a gorgeous
emerald green taffeta dress and sat at a table with Carol
Channing, an old friend. I told her,“Please don’t draw a card in
the tambola because it would be embarrassing for me if you
won.” At the end of the evening, it was time for the tambola. I
had been pressed into service to announce the winner. When I
read the number, I saw a hand shoot up and caught a glimpse of
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A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
green. Arlene! But in fact, it was Carol, sitting next to her. It
was perfect. She got up, vamped a bit in the coat in her
inimitable way, and it got us great press. Finally, the party was
over; it had been a huge success; I fell asleep completely
exhausted. At 7am the phone rang. “It’s Carol. I won the coat
last night.” “Yes, I know, congratulations.” “Do you think I
could exchange it for a white one? It doesn’t go so well with
my complexion.” Pl— eez! “No,” I gulped,“I’m afraid not.”
Carol Channing had won the summer ermine coat, but the
Fendi sisters later gave Arlene as a gift a sumptuous black
broadtail cape with an ermine collar that had been made for a
production of La Traviata. She wears it to this day.
The president of Elizabeth Arden, Joe Ronchetti, was from
Boston, so he wanted a splashy launch there, too. I suggested
that the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Fenway Court,
would be the perfect venue for the Fendi party because it had
been designed to look like a Venetian palazzo. You couldn’t get
more Italian than that.
Off I went to present the line to the executives at Jordan
Marsh, the top department store in Boston in those days. After
the presentation, they said how much they liked the line and
asked where we would hold the launch party in Boston. I said,
“The Gardner.” They looked at me in shock: “The Gaa-dner?”
they said in unison in that Boston drawl. “They’ll never go for
it.” They looked contemptuously at the vulgar New Yorker
who had dared suggest such a thing. Undaunted, I replied,
“Well, I have an appointment with the director this afternoon,
and we’ll see.” I did meet with him, and there was no
problem. Of course, I think what convinced
him was that they needed the funds, and we
were prepared to make a handsome donation
to the museum. In any case, it was the first
time ever that the Gardner had hosted a
commercial event. We went all out. It was
fantastic. We had pageantry galore: outside,
there were medieval trumpeters with the Fendi
logo on banners; inside, musicians stood on the
balcony above the atrium wearing fabulous
Renaissance costumes and there were lavish
decorations in the courtyard. It was so
amazing that Bill Cunningham of The New York
Times came up to Boston to cover it for the
‘Sunday Style’ page, another first. It was great
PR and a memorable party.
CAROL CHANNING AND THE FENDI COAT.
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A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
In London, for the launch at Harrod’s, we persuaded the new
owner, Mohamed Al Fayed, to fly Fendi flags all across the
façade of the store; the sisters arrived in a green horse-drawn
carriage. Hard to top that. But, needless to say, they tried
when the fragrance was launched in Rome; another triumph.
It was all quite a whirlwind, and I received an advanced
education in PR. It is amazing to think today that we
thought nothing of spending half a million dollars on a
perfume launch. Luckily the fragrance was a hit everywhere.
HARROD’S DEPARTMENT STORE LAUNCH FOR FENDI.
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A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
FENDI UOMO
Fendi
1980
The Fendi logo is a double F in a strict san serif font. Their
colors are beige, what they call palomino, and black, or really a
deep charcoal gray. For the Fendi Uomo bottle, I was inspired
by a kind of Bakelite used in the 1930s that had flecks of mica
in it. We had to do a huge amount of research to find a plastic
supplier who could learn how to imitate it. I wanted to feature
the Fendi colors, palomino and charcoal, so I designed a bottle
that appeared to have three vertical stripes.The center one was
actually the exposed glass bottle; two plastic end-caps created a
colored stripe left and right. The consumer could see the
fragrance go down via the clear middle stripe. It was a dramatic
but simple graphic treatment that photographed beautifully for
the ad and looked strong and masculine at point of purchase.
We did two bottles, one in palomino with vertical stripes, the
other in dark gray that was horizontal. The company was
willing to spend a great deal of money to do two kinds of
bottles and that was very effective on the counter display.
ABOVE: DESIGN SKETCH FOR THE
FENDI UOMO BOTTLE. INK ON PAPER. MARC ROSEN.
OPPOSITE PAGE: FENDI UOMO, FENDI
[ELIZABETH ARDEN] 1989. MARC ROSEN.
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A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
SKETCH FOR THE FENDI UOMO
IN-STORE PRESENTATION.
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A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
He is, by all accounts, the very best
at what he does, and I could not
have asked for a better mentor.
ON MY OWN
In 1989, Eli Lilly sold Elizabeth Arden. The good news: I and a
small group of execs had been given contracts with guaranteed
payoffs if and when a sale took place. The proper Midwestern
suits at Lilly told us, with great gravitas, that they would “look for
just the right buyer” because they so wanted us to know that they
cared enough to find the right fit. In no time, they sold us to the
first bidder, an Israeli entrepreneur named Mesulam Riklis who
had recently made the news by marrying the much younger pop
singer Pia Zadora. He had purchased an old fragrance brand
called Fabergé, which was noted primarily for the successful men’s
fragrance Brut that had been launched some years previously by
football star Joe Namath. This was Arden’s new owner!
A man named Dan Manella was appointed as Chairman. The
CEW (Cosmetics Executive Women’s organization) sponsored an
event where Mr. Manella would be introduced to the industry.
We were all very anxious to hear what he had to say. You must
remember that this was before major brands like Elizabeth Arden
were ever sold. Mr. Manella, who could have stepped out of
central casting for a role on The Sopranos, stood on the podium
and announced Fabergé’s positive intentions for the future of
Arden. It was then that I had an out-of-body experience:
Manella told the audience that he felt that one of the greatest
assets they had acquired with the Arden purchase was the talent
of “creative genius” Marc Rosen! Everyone turned to look at
me, including my co-workers and friends. I was mortified.
Manella’s idea of “profitability” was to take our prestigious
brand down market. He was cutting costs on all packaging,
Marc and I met one October afternoon in 1991.
eliminating the special touches that differentiate a class
presentation from a mass product: cellophane wraps, fluted
liners, embossing. I knew that the handwriting was on the
wall. It was time for me to leave Arden. In the end, I was able
to leave with a great deal: the equivalent of two years’ salary and
Arden as my first client.
Marc Rosen Associates would need an office. My dear friend
Jeffrey Butler had literally invented the concept of on-board
airline magazines, publishing them for Eastern, American,
Northwest, and Pan Am (alas, today, most of them are out of
business). Jeff had an entire building on East 51 Street just one
block from Arden. He graciously gave me half of a floor for
my offices in exchange for consulting. Perfect. Now I was in
business. I asked Mary Butler, a friend from my Revlon days,
to join me. A year or so later, Marc Rosen Associates had an
impressive roster of clients. One day, a client asked me if I
would mind interviewing a young man who had just graduated
from RIT, a good design school. His name was Kevin
Marshall. Little did either of us know that we would be
together for the next twenty years and still going strong.
MARC ROSEN AND KEVIN MARSHALL.
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For weeks I had been making the interview rounds, humping
my portfolio from one tip of Manhattan to the other. Naturally
I had grown weary of waiting in lobbies, distracted art
directors, acerbic creative criticism and more often than not
being written off busy schedules altogether. Understandably,
for over-booked professionals sitting with a nervous kid from
upstate New York with a newly minted design degree was a
pretty low priority.
But Marc was different. On that fateful afternoon he
personally met me at the elevator, warmly shook my hand and
graciously led me into his well-appointed office. He took the
time and spoke with me about the agency, his creative
philosophy, the importance of good design and my project
work. He even smiled! I was greatly impressed – and
appreciative.
He hired me for what we both thought would be a week’s
freelance duty. At the end of the week, I went into his office
to collect my pay where, in typical Marc style, he quickly asked
me if I wanted “the job.” I hadn’t known there was a job, I
replied. Yes, yes, he said, there was now a job and if I wanted
it I should show up for work on Monday morning. When I
reminded him I needed to get back upstate to collect my
things (not to mention a change of shorts) he simply
reiterated that he needed me first thing Monday – and that
was that. So in the end my mom mailed me a box of clothing
and the long-standing joke around the office is, to this day,
that I came for a week and wound up staying nearly twenty
years. Yet I can clearly remember the day we met, and how
much Marc’s time and generosity meant to me.
Fast forward to 2011 and I am proud to say that Marc and I
have what most consider an extraordinary creative
collaboration and personal synergy. We never take each other
for granted, and joke that we know one another about as well
as anybody can. He is, by all accounts, the very best at what
he does, and I could not have asked for a better mentor. In
fact, he’s become like a father to me. And at the core of what
drives him, be it the creation of award-winning fragrance
packaging or sitting with a young guy looking for his first
professional break, is the belief that all in Life is a choice, so
why not give it your very best effort. Excellence, after all, is
an ethic like any other.
Thanks for meeting me at the elevator once upon a time,
Marc! Going up?
Kevin Marshall
Vice President/Group Creative Director
Marc Rosen Associates
New York City
A DESIGNING LIFE: MY CAREER
PERRY ELLIS 360˚˚
Perry Ellis
1993
I have undertaken many projects in the twenty years since I left
Elizabeth Arden, working both with large companies and
individual entrepreneurs. One assignment I enjoyed, and for
which I won a FiFi (1994), was designing a Perry Ellis
fragrance in 1993. The designer himself had died in 1986, a
victim of the AIDS epidemic that had devastated the fashion
industry. His loss was a tragedy, as he had been a fresh, new
talent when he founded his own company in 1976. His
sportswear for both women and men was clean and classic, in a
completely modern way. After his death, the Perry Ellis
company continued with various designers at the helm.
In 1993, they decided to launch a fragrance with their licensor,
Sanofi. They had already chosen the name: 360º. I thought
that a geographic term was a strange choice, likely to confuse
the customer, but that was the concept, and I was assigned to
interpret it. I immediately thought of a globe with 360
degrees. I decided to make two bottles, one for the perfume,
the other for the eau de toilette. The two presentations would
complete each other: a perfume sphere and a cylindrical tower
with a sphere balanced on top. Something like the Trylon and
Perisphere at the 1939 World’s Fair.
The perfume bottle is made of heavy clear glass with a hollow
dome that you lift off. Inside, the stopper is a smaller sphere.
The heavy bottle fits beautifully in the hand, like a crystal orb. It
is a wonderful, mysterious object, a kind of modern crystal ball.
The eau de toilette presentation for 360° is a tall glass column
with a band of matte aluminum at the top, on which a
transparent sphere is balanced; it comes off to reveal the spray
pump. That bottle was presented inside a cylindrical paper tube
rather than the usual rectangular box. It was an intriguing
presentation and was repeated in different iterations for a long
succession of flankers.
ABOVE: 360°, PERRY ELLIS, PERFUME,
1993. MARC ROSEN.
70
OPPOSITE PAGE: 360°, PERRY ELLIS,
1993. MARC ROSEN.