Oh, patents! Invictus by Paco Rabanne

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Invictus by Paco Rabanne is a men’s Eau de Toilette, conditioned in a trophy-shaped bottle, that celebrates resilience. Invictus in Latin means “undefeated”. Whether by synchronicity or unpublicized connection, the Invictus Eau de Toilette was launched in 2013, the year before the first Invictus Games were held in London. The Invictus Games Foundation was founded by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, both as an international support community, and a pathway to recovery for wounded, injured, and sick servicemen and women (WIS). The Invictus Games is a multi-sport event that showcases the spirit of the WIS community. 

The Paco Rabanne Invictus Eau de Toilette was also launched about 130 years after the poem Invictus, by William Ernest Henley, was first published in 1875. A poem that is often quoted to summon the courage of those who refuse to be conquered in the face of tremendous adversity. For example, Nelson Mandela is known to have recited this poem during his many years of imprisonment in South Africa.

The Paco Rabanne Invictus perfume was created by Veronique Nyberg, Anne Flipo, Olivier Polge, and Dominique Ropion. The perfume is described as citrusy, aquatic, and woody. 

The Paco Rabanne Invictus Eau de Toilette bottle is patented. The US design patent, USD715151S, titled Container, was awarded on October 14th 2014, to Cedric Ragot, and assigned to Puig France. The patent Figure 1 is included below, together with an image of the marketed perfume bottle.

References

Invictus Games

https://www.invictusgamesfoundation.org/

Henley, W. E.  (1875). Invictus. Poets.org 

https://poets.org/poem/invictus#:~:text=William%20Ernest%20Henley%2C%20born%20August,%E2%80%9CInvictus%E2%80%9D%20(1875)

Paco Rabanne (website)

https://www.rabanne.com/us/en_US/

Trademark - Fame by Paco Rabanne

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Launched in 2022, one year after the Paco Rabanne Phantom perfume for men, Fame by Paco Rabanne  is a perfume for women, also packaged in a little refillable and connected robot-looking bottle. However, Fame is dressed in an iconic Paco Rabanne chainmail outfit, complete with large sunglasses, earrings, a bracelet on each arm, and women's boots. A chainmail dress reminiscent of the “Twelve unwearable dresses” that made Paco Rabanne instantly famous on his first runway show, in Paris, in 1966. 

Chainmail fashion that would then continue to inspire the Paco Rabanne-designed costumes for several movies, including the 1968 Roger Vadim blockbuster science fiction movie, Barbarella, starring Jane Fonda. One micromini dress of the original Paco Rabanne Twelve unwearables has even become part of the permanent collection at The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City.  

The Fame by Paco Rabanne perfume for women was created by four perfumers: Dora Baghriche, Marie Salamagne, Alberto Morillas, and Fabrice Pellegrin. Developed in Grasse, the French perfume-manufacturing hub, Fame by Paco Rabanne combines the fragrances of jasmine, mango, and incense.

A US trademark application was filed, on July 6th 2022, for an Illustration of the Paco Rabanne Fame perfume bottle for women. The application is pending, with the US serial number 79351168. The description of the application illustration—without words, letters, or numbers—is detailed as follows:   

"The mark consists of the three-dimensional configuration of packaging for the goods comprised of a container in the shape of a stylized gold humanoid robot wearing a silver chainmail style dress, and where the robot has a vertical cylindrical shaped head with a keyhole design on the top, along with identical horizontal cylinder style ears on each side with two semi-circle ear clip earrings on top of each ear and two circle earrings on the bottom of each ear, wearing gold frame sunglasses with a black front and a small vertical oval design at the center, held up by a gold cylinder neck, which is connected to the cylindrical torso bearing identical arms on each side made of gold vertical three-dimensional curved rectangles having slight protrusion at the top to mimic shoulders and bearing a gold circular bracelet at the wrist location, along with identical gold woman's boots to simulate legs and feet, and connected in the middle between them."

An image is included above of the marketed Fame by Paco Rabanne perfume bottle. 

References

Barbarella [1:38] (1968). Motion picture directed by Roger Vadim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks5eE-lTFDw 

Bromley, J. (Feb. 3, 2023). Paco Rabanne: Life of the Space Age designer behind chainmail dresses. The Standard. 

https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/fashion/paco-rabanne-space-age-avant-garde-chainmail-b1057831.html 

Dress (1967) by Design Paco Rabanne. The Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY.  

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/145899

Paco Rabanne (website)

https://www.rabanne.com/us/en_US/

Oh, patents! Paco Rabanne Phantom perfume bottle

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The Paco Rabanne patented Phantom perfume bottle is one of the most high-tech luxury perfume bottles you will find on the market. Phantom is both luxury perfume craft and high-tech, on at least three counts.

First, the bottle is designed to look like a stunning little collectible robot. Secondly, the men’s perfume contained within the bottle was designed using AI-driven fragrance programs for Augmented Creativity. The AI fragrance programs enabled a Rabanne quartet of expert perfumers, Anne Flipo, Dominique Ropion, Loc Dong and Juliette Karagueuzoglou to experiment with unexpected scent pairings, to select exact ingredients, and to fine-tune dosages. Thirdly, the bottle is connected. The cap has a built-in, Near-Field Communication (NFC), chip that connects to a smartphone. Just tap the cap with your smartphone, and you will have access to the Phantom Universe of games, videos, and playlists.

The Phantom perfume bottle was awarded the US design patent USD928625S, titled Fragrance Container, on August 24th 2021. The inventor on record is Jean-Marc Galvez, also known for having invented such remarkable perfume bottles as the Carolina Herrera ‘lightening bolt’ Bad Boy, and ‘scateboard' Forever Young, perfume bottles.

Below, the patent Figure 1, and an image of the marketed little robot perfume bottle, with its Paco Rabanne (PR) chest logo. Launched in 2021, the Paco Rabanne Phantom perfume bottle brings together lush, natural, and earthy fragrances, patchouli and lavender, with a fruity lemon fragrance, whose green, radiant, and zesty citrus energy was boosted with styrallyl acetate, a synthetic molecule.

                 

Best of all, when you have used all the perfume inside the bottle, you might still want keep the cute little robot bottle on your desk, considering that it will give you access to the Phantom Universe, even empty of its fragrance. On the other hand, if you love the perfume, and would rather not have an army of little robots cluttering your desk, you should also know that Paco Rabanne perfume is refillable. All you have to do is to buy a refill, which is supposed to be more environmentally sustainable. 

Finally, Phantom is a signature Paco Rabanne perfume. In other words, a perfume with the eponymous brand name of one of the greatest fashion designers, hailing from the Basque country in Spain. Someone, known to have pushed the limits of fashion in the sixties, having designed popular plastic chainmail dresses. Fashion that blended medieval times with the birth of the space exploration age, into a new aesthetics.

 

References

Rabanne website

https://fashion.rabanne.com