The design duo talk celebrating 10-years of Flowerbomb, the creative process behind making the fragrance and their dreams of expanding into colour cosmetics.
Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb – how many of us own it? A quick poll of the Marie Claire offices reveals that three quarters of us either have owned it or own it. I, for one, have a total of three Flowerbomb bottles on my dressing table at home. Obsessed? Me?
Much like Jean Paul Gaultier’s sexily clad Classique, or Davidoff’s Cool Water, there’s something about Flowerbomb – something that we can’t quite put our finger on – that makes it a keeper. Fragrance boffs Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, said in their book ‘Perfumes: The A-Z Guide’ that Flowerbomb is a ‘sweet-tooth fantasia that smells like a shop where you buy gummies by the pound.’ And they’re not wrong, maybe we just fans of the sweet stuff.
No surprises here then to discover that Flowerbomb has this year reached a bit of a milestone; it has been tickling our fancies for 10-years. That’s a whole decade! Allow us a minute to feel our age…
We caught up with Dutch designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren to talk about the magic behind Flowerbomb and why 10-years after hitting us with what they describe as ‘a weapon to transform anything into something beautiful’. Flowerbomb is still a favourite among fragrance fans – including us! Viktor tells us that after 10-years on the market ‘it’s still so great to see that people are truly fanatical about it.’
When we ask how the name Flowerbomb came about, Viktor tells us; ‘We were very drawn to flowers when we started smelling and then we said well not one particular type of flower, we would like an explosion of flowers and then we thought oh a flower bomb! That would be a very cool name, because that makes the perfume almost like a weapon’. An apt name, because Flowerbomb certainly leaves its mark and can easily be sniffed-out amongst a crowd. Rolf tells us this is part of Flowerbomb’s allure: ‘The fact that it’s so distinctive is part of its appeal, it’s was original when we launched it and it still is today’ he says. ‘It’s so rewarding to see how people still, after all this time, love it.’
The duo celebrated the 10th anniversary of Flowerbomb in Paris earlier this year where American singer and musician Tori Amos performed for their guests. ‘Tori performed at one of our shows 10-years a go,’ explains Rolf. ‘Flowerbomb inspires such loyalty so we wanted to show our own loyalty and invite her back to perform at our anniversary.’
Viktor & Rolf’s passion for scent comes part-and-parcel with being fashion designers. ‘Thinking about beauty, thinking about this whole universe, that is fashion, not just clothes’ adding ‘we were both drawn in to fashion in the first place by perfume ads, the mystery of perfume and the glamour of perfume’. Rolf says ‘its something that has stayed with us always’.
When it comes to personal scent preferences Viktor speaks fondly of his dog ‘My dog doesn’t need Flowerbomb, I love her natural smell, that’s one of my favourite smells in the world’. Rolf however describes his love for clean smelling Japanese incense and candles ‘I always bring them round to Viktor’s home’ he tells.
Viktor & Rolf seem to perfect all that they lay their hands to, when we ask them if they would ever consider expanding into colour cosmetics (can you just imagine the packaging?!) they both agree that they’d love to‘ That is one of our biggest dreams’ says Viktor and after revealing that they are working on something that will be revealed soon, we can only hope it’s something we can put on our face!
To celebrate the anniversary of Flowerbomb nab the Limited Edition Viktor & Rolf Flowerbomb, £74 for 50ml edp