Flowerbomb By Viktor&Rolf: 3D Printing To Create The Exceptional
Craftsmanship increased thanks to the power of tech
A blend of sensoriality and emotion, experience and passion, fragrances at L'Oréal now bring together unique craftsmanship with cutting-edge technologies like 3D-printing. Here, this Haute Couture edition of Flowerbomb by Viktor&Rolf offers a demonstration of what craftsmanship can do when increased with technology.
What better way to celebrate the emblematic Flowerbomb perfume by the avant-garde duo Viktor&Rolf than to dream up a unique fragrance bottle that combines technology with the craftsmanship know-how? To succeed creating a casing as precious as it is elaborate, the brand decided to use a technology that hails directly from industry: 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing.
3D printing: from prototype to bottle
A manufacturing technique by which objects are created in volume as successive layers of material – resin, metal or even glass – are added, 3D printing has in recent years found its place in industrial processes, particularly in the prototyping stage. This has made it possible to quickly have access to printed components or complete packaging units developed with design software, to test and improve them.
In the hands of our teams, 3D printing technology has shortened the time to market for new products, in line with consumer expectations. Our objective is to cut our products’ development time in half. "Since 2018, as part of our digital transformation, we have been using additive manufacturing to prototype our packaging in-house. This decision has reduced the time from design to prototype from several days to about 12 hours.”, explain Cristina Monnoyeur, Global Digital Transformation for Operations.
In 2020, 100% of our design centers are equipped with 3D printers, as are 23 of our 40 factories.
With 3D printing having proved its worth where prototypes are concerned, it was time to move on to the next stage: producing the packaging itself. Now, that too has become reality: 3D printing is pushing back the bounds of craftsmanship to create high-precision parts of such finesse and complexity that they are difficult for human hands to produce. It enables us to project new forms, new receptacles and packaging, and put innovation and creation at the service of our products.
Bouquet of interlaced rose gold flowers
From now on, the Haute Couture edition of Flowerbomb will take to the scene in a unique bottle.
This series will be adorned with a bouquet of flowers intertwined with brambles of rose gold. Flowers, shown in all their splendid detail, complete with petals and pistils that echo the composition of Flowerbomb's “juice”
“We came up with this perfume by pushing flowers to their limits, studying each facet of a bouquet,” explains Olivier Polge, one of the three perfumers behind the fragrance, along with Carlos Benaïm and Domitille Bertier.
“Our central idea was to compose a thousand-flower array of freesia, rose, jasmine and others,” add Benaïm and Bertier.
“Flowerbomb is a swirl of petals, a dizzying journey for the senses.”
Carlos Benaïm et Domitille Bertier,
Perfume-makers