London’s Serpentine Galleries have collaborated with renowned fashion house Comme des Garçons to create a bespoke unisex fragrance entitled Serpentine.
The fragrance was developed on the occasion of the Serpentine Galleries’ expanded presence in the Royal Park of Kensington Gardens with the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Serpentine Galleries invited Tracey Emin to design Serpentine’s bottle and box, the first in a new, ongoing artist commission. Created in France during the summer of the artist’s 50th birthday, Emin’s drawing takes inspiration from a sculpture she purchased depicting a lovers’ embrace. The handwritten text for the bottle face reads: “The Grass, The Trees, The Lake, and You”.
The bottle text is printed in luminous silver and the artwork for the packaging slip cover is hot foil stamped in bright silver.
Christian Astuguevieille, creative director of Comme des Garçons Parfums, with Emilie Coppermann, perfumer, developed the fragrance in response to the Serpentine Galleries’ unique setting in the Royal Park of Kensington Gardens. The result is a fresh, accessible yet deceivingly complex and light unisex scent.
Christian Astuguevieille said: “The Serpentine asked me to create a perfume that would be rooted in their geographical location in the middle of one of biggest parks in the middle of one of the biggest cities of the world. We worked on the concept of ‘Green and City’, but not any green space in any city. The perfume we made is London specific, finding the best fresh and tender green notes from Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park and interplaying and juxtaposing them with the smells of London, the circulation of its traffic and its air. We wanted to create a fragrance that symbolised Nature in a City”. The scent is composed of grass, leaves, pollen (galbanum, irisleaf), oxygen (aldehyde, ozone), asphalt (black musk, nutmeg), labdanum, smoked cedar with a little bit of pollution (benzoin, juniper wood, lignum vitae).
Serpentine Director, Julia Peyton-Jones and Co-Director Hans Ulrich Obrist, said: “For over 44 years, artists and architects have responded to the extraordinary setting of the Serpentine in Kensington Gardens. We are delighted that Comme des Garçons have created a new fragrance that captures the experience of visiting the Galleries and the Park. It is an honour to collaborate with the eminent designer Rei Kawakubo and world leading artist Tracey Emin to create this first frargrance commission for the new Serpentine Shop. We are thrilled with Tracey’s beautiful drawing and words that adorn Serpentine’s bottle and packaging.”
London-based Art Director Daniel Baer has designed the packaging for Serpentine that comprises a simple square bottle with a depth half its height and a face left blank for an artist’s work. The box also features a removable slip cover, the surface of which can be decorated by an artist. The pump, collar and cap are all in silver.
