Architecture Meets Fragrance: Inside Frank Gehry’s Perfume Bottle Design for Louis Vuitton
A Perfume Designed by an Architect
You know how some perfumes smell expensive? Fantasmagory by Louis Vuitton actually looks expensive. Because it’s designed by none other than Frank Gehry, the architect who turned titanium into movement and chaos into poetry.
In this new chapter of Louis Vuitton’s Les Extraits Collection, Gehry doesn’t just design a bottle; he sculpts light. The result is a perfume bottle that feels alive, twisting like wind-blown petals caught in a ray of sun. It’s fluid, reflective, and impossible to forget.
The Fragrance: Vanilla Reimagined
Perfumer Jacques Cavallier Belletrud isn’t new to reinvention, but here he takes vanilla, that old comfort note of childhood and pastry, and turns it into something radically modern.
This isn’t your warm-cookie vanilla. It’s Tahitensis vanilla from Papua New Guinea, cryogenically frozen and CO₂-extracted. Yes, science meets seduction, giving it a luminous, silky texture. Think sunlight filtered through silk curtains, not sugar.
Jacques Cavallier Belletrud composing Fantasmagory perfume with vanilla pods and ginger
He layers it with almond from Italy, soft as powdered amaretto, and ginger, his signature ingredient, to add an airy sparkle. Together, they make Fantasmagory less a perfume and more a sensory illusion, a bright, weightless glow that lingers on skin like a secret.
Read: Scent Is Memory: My Olfactory Wardrobe From the 70s to Today
The Art of the Bottle: Frank Gehry’s Perfumed Architecture
If perfume is emotion, Gehry’s design is movement. He reshaped Marc Newson’s apothecary-style bottle, rounding its edges and giving it a luminous yellow tint that flashes green in the light.
Detail of Gehry’s sculptural bottle cap reflecting light
The cap unfurls in silver petals, an echo of his architectural vocabulary: curves, reflections, and the illusion of motion. It’s perfume as sculpture, as if Bilbao’s Guggenheim shrunk to fit your dressing table.
With Fantasmagory, Gehry doesn’t just contain a scent; he captures a story about how air, light, and material can dance together.
Fantasmagory — A World of Illusion
The name comes from the 18th-century “phantasmagoria” shows: early light projections that blurred the line between dream and reality. That’s exactly what this perfume does. It floats between material and immaterial, scent and light, substance and fantasy.
Because what else would Louis Vuitton call a perfume that smells like architecture and looks like a hallucination?
Availability
Fantasmagory Extrait de Parfum 100ml – €510
Available at selected Louis Vuitton boutiques and louisvuitton.com.
Louis Vuitton Les Extraits Collection lineup featuring Fantasmagory extrait de parfum
FAQ
| What is Frank Gehry’s perfume bottle design for Louis Vuitton? | Gehry designed the bottle for Fantasmagory, a sculptural, silver-petaled flacon that captures light and movement. A miniature work of architecture. |
| Who created the Fantasmagory fragrance? | Louis Vuitton’s Master Perfumer Jacques Cavallier Belletrud, known for his use of rare natural ingredients and bold reinterpretations. |
| What does Louis Vuitton Fantasmagory smell like? | A radiant blend of Tahitensis vanilla, Italian almond, and CO₂-extracted ginger. It’s creamy, airy, and luminous rather than sweet. |
| What is the Les Extraits Collection? | A line of high-art perfumes created by Louis Vuitton. Each perfume is interpreted by Jacques Cavallier Belletrud and designed by Frank Gehry. |
| Why is it called Fantasmagory? | Inspired by 18th-century illusion shows called phantasmagorias. It reflects the perfume’s theme of light, transformation, and fantasy. |
Images courtesy @Louis Vuitton
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