When Christian Dior launched Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet, the first variant of the famous Miss Dior perfume since 1947 and their ‘most couture fragrance’ ever, they sought something exceptional to herald the event. So the company called on Petra Roth of PR Service Graphique in Chartres, France to find a way to deposit fragrance directly on to printed paper, card or textiles. (This technique, known as Carte Emotion, was developed in 2011 by PO Groupe.)
Initially they discussed embossing the silhouette of a flacon (or perfume bottle) on to a scented card for distribution inside magazines, but then came up with the novel idea of embroidering the flacon onto the card, a neat reference to Dior’s expertise as a couture house. The idea snowballed until they decided to embroider not only the outline but the pink perfume, the neck bow and, pushing fabrication to its limits, Dior’s signature houndstooth pattern which is engraved into the glass.
Then it was over to Roth to find a printer with both the precision and the capacity to produce 2.4 million embroidered scented cards, each individually enclosed in an envelope. She looked to China. ‘Their pride in production is amazing,’ she says. Indeed nothing was too much trouble – even sacrificing their manicures: ‘Chinese women like to wear their fingernails long,’ explains Roth. ‘Unfortunately, this meant lots of scratch marks on the paper. Using tact and diplomacy, we intimated to them that fewer scratches meant less paper wastage, which in turn meant better productivity and higher earnings. Result: short nails overnight and no more scratches!’
The cards were first embroidered, then screen-printed with the logo, and finally scented with the Miss Dior fragrance. The choice of paper was crucial. It had to be dense enough to sustain the tightly stitched embroidery and supple enough to support several intense passages of the sewing machine’s needle. Another consideration was that it had to be completely odourless and acid free. The paper finally chosen was the one closest to a textile, Fedrigoni Century Cotton Wove 350 g/m2 with 25 per cent cotton fibre for the embroidered facing and Cotton Wove 220 g/m2 for the backing which hides the reverse side.
It was not a straightforward process: ‘The registration of stitches and the execution of the houndstooth pattern were extremely challenging, but the registration of stitches around the central rectangle of the logo was a nightmare,’ recalls Roth. ‘The printing press vibrates, the needles break, the thread knots … We had a tolerance of one millimetre, and we kept well within it. The envelope is laminated both inside and out. This detail was essential as it contains the fragrance until it is opened – otherwise, each magazine would be strongly scented, which was not our desired effect.’
The positive reaction to this little card has been overwhelming. Not only does its fragrance conform exactly to the bottled one, it also stays fresh and constant for two years. The 2.4 million readers who received the insert with Elle and other magazines in Italy, France, the UK and the Middle East can now use the card to scent their lingerie drawers, wardrobes or handbags, or as a fragrant bookmark, bringing a whole new elegance to couture recycling.