“An architect’s design is less about style than about structure, the essence of a question, as well as about the features of the era that poses that question. It evolves through distilling objects down to their essence, following techniques that may be unusual. What might the specific qualities of this perfume bottle be? Masculinity, luxury, a jewel-like preciousness. I wanted its shape to be self-evident: for it to be easily taken in hand, for it to further evoke several different registers of the imagination. I wanted it to thereby express the contradictions of “the Yves Saint Laurent man”, who mixes virility with fragility. The look of the bottle symbolises a perfectly accepted virility; but the contrasting delicacy of the glass implies a kind of fragility and gentleness. In the end, both glass and perfume play on the light that passes through them. That’s what makes the bottle precious, just as the perfume it houses is luxurious.”

Jean Nouvel