Box Vox

packaging as content

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July 25, 2012

Brilliant Cut Gemstone Bottles


Top left: Isklar bottle by Blue Marlin; center: Ramlösa bottle by NINE; on right: “Diamond” bottle by Cristiano Giuggioli; below: “Lady Million” perfume bottle by Paco Rabanne; on right: Givenchy “Ange ou Démon” perfume bottle by Villéger Summers Design; below that: a Jennifer Lopez “Deseo” perfume bottle; 2nd row, left: a Bombay Sapphire gin bottle by Karim Rashid; center: a Johnny Walker crystal decanter by LINEA; a Tous H2O perfume bottle; bottom row: the Johnny Walker”Diamond Jubilee” bottle

A lot of bottles for luxury goods are designed to look like cut gemstones. Seeing such an opulent assortment, I can’t help but imagine that every once in a while, maybe 1% of the time, a homeless person collecting bottles and cans will open up this treasure chest of a recycling bin full of bottles like these.

Of the products that are most often contained in a jeweled bottle, there seem to be three main categories. Liquor and perfume are no surprise as cut glass decanters and perfume bottles have been around since the dawn of the aristocracy.

The water bottles, on the other hand, are little surprising. Partly it’s the association of “ice” with gemstones. So it is that Isklar glacial mineral water gets a crystalline, jewel-like bottle.

With his “Diamond” bottle for the imaginary Aqua Carpatica water brand, Cristiano Giuggioli seeks to highlight the “preciousness” of water:

“…the purest water, chooses to undress every plethora and to dress up light. The light exalts the preciousness of water, for this reason Diamond is the perfect bottle for the perfect water.”

Beneath the metaphor, however, is the darker implication that water is becoming a luxury product that you would willingly pay a king’s ransom to keep drinking.

See also: Elizabeth Royte on Packaged Water

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