J'adore

A work in gold for j’adore

French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel – whose monumental installations are exhibited in the world’s leading museums – has created an exceptional piece inspired by L’Or de J’adore, Francis Kurkdjian’s latest creation for Dior, and produced in just 100 examples.^*A marvellous celebration of the art of perfume. An interview by Marie Audran.

MARIE AUDRAN: What was your inspiration for this tribute to Francis Kurkdjian’s L’Or de J’adore?

JEAN-MICHEL OTHONIEL: The floral world and my passion for botany are at the heart of my process. The rose, a symbol of love and rebirth, to which I’ve already paid homage at the Louvre, is also very present in the J’adore constellation. It’s an architectural flower, and that’s what inspired me to create this new little sculpture for J’adore. This collaboration with Dior brings my work to a wider audience, and my research also resulted in a giant sculpture, Gold Rose, unveiled at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

^*This exceptional edition – placed in a precious setting, in white and gold, evoking the special crates used to transport art – is available upon request starting in November 2023, in selected boutiques worldwide (Paris, Tokyo, London, New York, etc).

MA: That dovetails with Monsieur Dior’s idea of couture as “ephemeral architecture”. Here, his first lines, En Huit and Corolle – which appeared in the iconic New Look – seem to merge into one, in a petal-like case and an 8-shaped bottle...

JMO: The sign of infinity, such as the 8, runs through my sculptures, whose necklace-like shapes have no beginning and no end. Here, the rose materializes an interlacing of infinities and possibilities. The pearls are trajectories of energy. As if weightless, the sculpture holds a crystal bottle at its heart. It evokes a drop of gold nestling in a corolla of enveloping petals. The two merge harmoniously in a play of curves. The whole story of J’adore is a tribute to femininity that has evolved over the years. In this artistic project, the corolla grants a woman’s freedom pride of place, as does the bottle, which always appears to be moving: as soon as you pick it up, it comes to life. Its rounded base means it can’t just be “put down”, just like femininity in action, which is contemporary and has its own power. We’ve come a long way from woman-as-object… It’s also a talisman that can be worn and cherished.

MA: Jean Cocteau described his friend Christian Dior as “this light genius of our time, whose magical name includes God and gold”. Gold is the eternal Dior code that makes J’adore shine; what does it symbolize for you?

JMO: For me, gold is more than a colour; it’s an essential, telluric material. It’s a resource that comes directly from nature, and I always try to bring back to life its magic of metamorphosis, its sacred link with the cosmos, which surpasses us in its quasi-divine origin. Since the dawn of time, gold has been inscribed in and resonant with all cultures: African, European, American, Egyptian, Chinese… Its universality places gold on a level all its own. Recapturing the unique power of gold is central to my project for Dior.

MA: What (other) materials were sublimated by this piece for Dior?

JMO: The bronze sculpture was dipped in gold. In particular, I used the lost wax-casting technique, a savoir-faire used by great sculptors like Camille Claudel and Rodin. My initial sculpture in wax disappears, leaving its imprint in bronze, and that’s how these 100 exceptional pieces came into being. Bronze, too, is a material of metamorphosis; it has the virtuoso power of assuming the shape of wax in a very precise way. It was important to me that this sculpture appear like a nest of pearls for the perfume. The weight of the bronze brings home the beauty of the materials and their power, as does the uniquely transparent crystal used for the bottle.

MA: The savoir-faire used here echoes those found in haute couture, the poetry of the hand… Was it essential for you to celebrate Dior’s petites mains?

JMO: As an artist, I collaborate with glassblowers, smelters, metalworkers… I call on many specialized skills based on excellence, a little like an orchestra conductor who writes and directs a score and chooses accompaniment by the best performers. It’s a concert of savoir-faire, an ode to craftsmanship, a way of pushing the limits of the exceptional. Here, magnified light embodies spirituality and universal wonder: a drop of gold and perfume transcended by a ray of sunlight, like the childlike awe we all carry within us. I love reconnecting with those very first emotions.

“Recapturing the unique power of gold is central to my project for Dior.”

– Jean-Michel Othoniel

MA: This isn’t the first time you’ve reinterpreted the world of J’adore…

JMO: I was lucky enough to do a limited edition ten years ago with my glassmakers in Murano, who were producing a Dior bottle for the first time. J’adore, whose universal aura now embraces the planet – a resounding emotional success – “speaks” to the whole world, from Korea to Africa; you fall in love with it precisely because it showcases the power of flowers. That’s what’s so beautiful about this fragrance: it both anchors you in the reality of nature and propels you into something marvellous. It’s that contemplation, that dual sacred dimension, that always captures my interest.

MA: What is your vision of perfume?

JMO: It’s a fascination I come back to time and again. We “wear” perfume, and in the sculpture I created, there’s this idea of “wearing” the bottle, of solidarity, of harmony, of love, of proudly putting on a perfume that evolves differently on each individual, a living artwork to contemplate in order to (re)discover emotion. That’s why we return to museums to see art, why we visit the Mona Lisa again – because she speaks to us differently depending on the moment we (re)see her. The olfactory emotion we feel changes in the same way, depending on our mood, our encounters, whether we’ve ventured through a field of orange trees in Andalusia or roses in Grasse. In that respect, art and perfume are resilient; they are truly experiences of reality and the senses, and all the more so today, when almost everything is becoming virtual.

Like a sketch by Monsieur Dior that brought a dress to life, from this drawing was born Gold Rose, a giant sculpture inspired by this limited edition for L’Or de J’adore.

“I always begin with a watercolour drawing, like a daydream set down on paper; I then choose the interpreters, from jewellers to architects, to build a sculpture of sometimes giant dimensions, like Gold Rose, which is 3.1 metres high; the pearls are shaped by hand and gilded with gold leaf. This monumental version of the L’Or de J’adore edition is part of a solo exhibition, The Flowers of Hypnosis at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and is part of my collaboration with Dior for the Jardins Culturels program that began at the Petit Palais in Paris. This show, inaugurated in New York on July 18, 2023, is the third and final itinerary for this dialogue sponsored by Dior, which enables me to create new pieces and let them travel. Dior has an extraordinary power of supporting artists and accompanying them, giving them all the freedom they need, in keeping with Christian Dior’s passion for the arts as a collector and one-time gallerist.”

– Jean-Michel Othoniel

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