Look at any perfume bottle from Pierre Dinand’s oeuvre and you can see his hand immediately. In the oblong shape and tortoiseshell hues of Calvin Klein Eternity, the architectural splendour of Giorgio Armani’s Crystal Edition, and the art deco stripes that decorate the cylindrical Saint Laurent Rive Gauche. Underpinned by an essential timelessness, Dinand’s designs feel just as contemporary today as they did when they were first introduced – a quality that has seen him work with every major fashion house over the past six decades, from Pierre Balmain to Paco Rabanne, Yves Saint Laurent to Giorgio Armani.

Born in Paris in 1931, the designer spent his childhood drawing and making sculptures out of wood. After dropping out of the École des Beaux-Arts, where he was studying architecture, and completing his nationalservice, Dinand joined a small advertising agency which specialised in luxury goods. He came to designing perfume bottles by chance, after being introduced to Hélène Rochas who needed someone to design a bottle for her new fragrance, Madame Rochas. Making a stopper out of plastic and metal instead of glass, with this first bottle, not only did Dinand create something truly unique, he laid the groundwork for what would come to revolutionise the entire practice of perfume bottle design.

Thomas Lenthal: When you first started out, did the job of a perfume bottle designer exist?
Pierre Dinand: Not really. No one was interested in making perfume bottles. I had a major competitor called Raymond Loewy who wanted to hire me but I worked independently.

Did the tools that you used to make your ideas already exist?
They already existed but not in perfume. When we were creating the bottles for Madame Rochas and Eau d’Hermès in the late ‘50s I went to see some glassmakers to try and learn what we could do, and how we could change those horrible glass stoppers that everyone was using, which either got stuck or broke. We made a few attempts, and then I found a manufacturer of aluminium powder compacts who agreed to work on aluminium stoppers for Madame Rochas.

When did you start working with Saint Laurent on Rive Gauche?
In 1968, Saint Laurent came to New York with Hélène Rochas, where I was working for the broadcasting network CBS, and we went to meet Andy Warhol. He had just done the Campbell Soup can poster, and Saint Laurent said: ‘I want to do something with metal cans!’ I had a workshop at the time but we didn’t know if we could work with plexiglass and metal. So, we made metal cylinders to see if it was possible. We had to be sure that the perfume would stay in the aluminium, because if you leave a perfume for more than six months in a metal container, it starts to erode. People told us we were crazy, but we launched the product, and it was an instant success.

What was the story behind the Bayadère stripes?
They were inspired by an art deco vase by Jean Dunand that I found at a flea market.

Can we talk about Opium?
That all started in 1975. A buyer in the US was looking to stock another brand so I told him about Kenzo who was causing a stir in Paris. He told me to send some ideas and I made a maquette, but in the end he thought the whole thing was too Japanese and wouldn’t work. At the time, Americans still had anti-Japanese sentiments due to Pearl Harbour. I kept my maquette, and six months later, Pierre Bergé invited me to Marrakech where Yves Saint Laurent was living. He wanted to make a perfume inspired by Gustave Courbet and Eugène Delacroix. I modified my initial design for Kenzo and my wife came up with a colour inspired by Chinese cinnabar lacquer. I presented it 15 days later and he said: ‘It’s wonderful, that’s like the inro boxes they put their opium in!’ So the name actually came from the bottle. However Squibb, the pharmaceutical brand who produced all the Saint Laurent fragrances, rejected the idea straight away because it was too radical. I remember the Squibb president came to Paris to meet Saint Laurent and he said: ‘We will never launch this plastic piece of shit!’ No one would do it. So, I had to take complete responsibility for it. I had to find the glassmaker and the plastic maker. It was a huge risk. But it came out, in France first, and was a fantastic success.

Tell me about your method.
Normally I would start by interviewing the couturier. Often they would say, ‘I have no idea,’ which was better for me. I would then ask about their favourite perfumes, and if they still had no idea, I would go to their house. It was Cristóbal Balenciaga who taught me that if they don’t have any ideas, go to their house and you’ll see what they collect. It’s true, at Balmain’s house, there were lots of ivory sculpted objects, so I made a bottle sculpted from a block of ivory. It was the same for Calvin Klein. In the entrance hall of his New York duplex, there were these enormous blocks of rocks, all smoothed over, that he had brought back from Tibet. They resembled phalluses. In another room, on a little table, was a collection of blonde tortoiseshell objects. The big oblong stones gave me the idea for the shape of Obsession, and the colour came from the tortoiseshell. When he saw the design, he said, ‘That’s totally me!’

Another funny story was with Paco Rabanne, Calandre. Antonio Puig’s company in Barcelona wanted to make a perfume. At the time, Paco had just made a dress for Brigitte Bardot and had a little boutique just by the Folies Bergère. We went to meet him and the connection was instant. I asked him: ‘What is a perfume to you?’ And he said: ‘It’s a couple making love in a car at a drive-in in New York.’ So I told him, ‘You need a big car for that!’ And he said: ‘Yes, a Rolls Royce.’ From Rolls Royce, we took the idea of a car grill which became the basis of the design for Calandre. That was the method – I always tried to find a word, phrase, or object that’s linked to the couturier. It was the same thing with Armani. In the early ‘80s, I got called to Giorgio Armani’s house in Milan. I was told I would have a 15-minute meeting at 2.30pm, so I arrived on time and we started talking. He asked me what I studied, and I told him I had done architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts and he said, ‘Me too!’ So he cancelled all his other appointments for the day and invited me to dinner. Over the course of the evening, we spoke a lot about architecture; for him, Andrea Palladio’s buildings represented the ideal, especially Villa La Rotonda in Vicenza. He loved the dome and the columns. I knew Palladio very well of course, and so we based the design for the Giorgio Armani perfume on that.

Is the idea of perfection important in your work?
Yes, it takes a lot of time to get it right; a lot of technical surveillance. My grandson who works with me now, Jules, spends a lot of time surveying the quality of the glass, complaining when it is not exactly how it should be. By being more demanding with the glassmakers, we ended up forming the best makers in the world.

You trained them, in a way. Your exactitude forced them to meet the high expectations of the projects you gave them.
It was the same thing with the metalworkers, the cardboard makers, and the pump makers. Getting rid of pumps that dripped or which used dangerous aerosols. That’s why it’s so important to have exactitude in terms of the quality.

You’re a very modern man. You look for elements that will help you build a convincing story for your client, but when we look at your work, there is a very specific viewpoint and personal sense of taste. Where does that come from?
If there isn’t an initial spark, it’s harder to make something personalised. When you see new bottles today, so many of them just look like each other, there is a sort of standardisation. It’s a shame. But maybe the personalised bottle went too far. There are people that find it too strong and they want to stick with a banal standard bottle à la Chanel.

When did you witness this change of approach in the market?
It started in the ‘90s. For other reasons too, mainly the rejection of plastic materials, which aren’t recyclable. I mean it’s crazy, really, because the number of perfume bottles produced compared to plastic water bottles is minimal.

Your designs have a timeless quality, which in my opinion is why you’re still working.
In 1996, I decided to stop, because I could see that we were using more and more standard designs. I didn’t have a team anymore. I was a bit sickened by it all. But then I got caught up in it again by Paco Rabanne who said: ‘You can’t stop, we need your ideas!’

In a world where everything is presented in 3D, do you still work with paper and pencil?
Yes. Up until 1995, we had a mechanical workshop with milling machines and the tools to make our own maquettes. These days, we show a 3D object with a digital file, but sometimes we show a maquette that we have made with a specialist. With digital techniques, our work as sculptors has become less important. Back in the day, brands had huge budgets for the design, maquettes of all sizes, and the technical follow-up. Things have changed.

What’s the future of all this?
There’s no longer that contact with the couturiers. Everything has to go via the marketing departments who don’t really know what they want. So, the easiest option is to make something standard. Apart from when occasionally someone wants to do an original bottle.

Is Pierre Dinand a dynasty?
My sons used to work with me. Olivier, who was more technical, spent a lot of time with the glassmakers, whereas Jérôme was an extraordinary designer. Now it’s my grandson Jules who has been working with me for the last ten years. Not only does he present the drawings, he also has his own ideas. I don’t always agree. But it’s another way of seeing and doing things. I understand that people have probably had enough of seeing my bottles and they want to see something new.

I’m not sure that’s true!