Lacoste launch their new fagrance with a little help from Central St Martins
To celebrate the launch of Eau de Lacoste Rouge, the latest scent in their L.12.12 mens fragrance collection, the French brand turned to London’s most famous art school Central St Martin’s and presented them with a design challenge.
Graphic design students were given a brief at the Lacoste headquarters: to design artworks out of the coloured fragrance bottles of the four scents in the Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 mens collection (it’s pronounced el-douze-douze, with a French accent, naturellement). The latest addition, Rouge – which follows Blanc, Blue and Vert – was unveiled at an event at the Hospital Club last week, along with the winner of the CSM contest. Helen and I went along to sniff out (sorry I couldn’t resist) the competition before we headed over to the Batiste launch event.
All the students’ entries were on display, along with lots of bottles of Rouge. Forget the boys, we like the scent so much we want to use it ourselves. Apparently it features a triple blend of spices – ginger, black pepper and cardamom. Sounds more like a chai tea recipe, I know, but it’s actually a really great zesty combination, not overpoweringly masculine.
Lacoste design director Christophe Pillet, who set the brief initially, had flown into London especially for the occasion. In his swooningly thick French accent he explained, in typical award ceremony style, that it had been a really difficult decision picking the winner. He also suggested, I kid you not, that the students who didn’t win might want to swipe some of the Rouge fragrance bottles later as a substitute. He was very droll. Christophe presented Sabba Keynejad with the top prize for his very cool design in which little Lacoste crocodiles were created from a mass of lots of L.12.12 bottles. After the presentation, we had a quick chat with Christophe (I can confirm he smelled divine, as one would imagine) and asked him why they chose St Martins rather than a French art school. ‘Because we wanted the best,’ he said, explaining that CSM’s reputation for talent and innovation is world famous. Well, vive l’Anglaterre, you might say.
See Sabba and the runners-up designs in the gallery below. Eau de Lacoste Rouge, part of the Lacoste L.12.12 mens collection, is on sale now.
