Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory by Bond No. 9

Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory marks the start of Bond No. 9’s series of Warhol collectibles. Depicted on the bottle’s surface is a graphic image inspired by one of the pop artist’s most recognizable images—a boldly re-colored rendition of the Campbell’s Soup Can. Soup? Perfume? Both smell sweet to us. But an Andy Warhol perfume? Well, Warhol once made mention of a company that was “interested in buying *his* aura.” Here it is, in liquid form…

• Citrussy BERGAMOT in soft and gentle mode (as if it had a hangover)
• Impudently zesty GRAPEFRUIT
• Mood-altering LAVENDER
• Non-shrinking VIOLET (Andy Warhol’s favorite scent)
• Intoxicating INCENSE  summoning up the ‘60’s with a single sniff
• Criminally sultry JASMINE
• Elusive, metallic IRIS, smelling the way silver might smell
• Velvety-soft AMBER – a tranquilizer in fragrance form
• Syrupy WOOD RESIN, hinting  of a raunchy breed of vanilla
• Cool but sensual CEDARWOOD

Like all the scents-in-progress that Bond No. 9 is designing for their Warhol repertory, this one is of ambiguous male-female gender. Available starting December 1st…a new direction in the art of perfumery and perfume bottle design. I’m a fan of Andy Warhol and like I said before I collect unique/pretty perfume bottles – this one is very very nice! More info after the jump…

Bond No. 9 is an edgy downtown perfumer, committed to art and design—not just the art of scent-making, but the visual components, too—including bottle and package design. The idea of combining Warhol with fragrance resonated with them. After all, we are in the midst of a Warhol revival, centered on a fascination with glamour as an escape hatch for our own age of global anxiety. And how better to express that glamour than with fragrance? Warhol once remarked, “Another way to take up more space is with perfume. I really love wearing perfume.” What’s more, “for an iconic time, perfume is a way to see and be seen,” adds Bond No. 9’s president, Laurice Rahme. “We were attracted to Bond No 9’s creative approach to luxury perfumery which celebrates New York City,” said Michael Hermann, director of licensing at The Andy Warhol Foundation. “Working with Bond No. 9 represents a unique, unexpected, and exciting opportunity to introduce Warhol to an ever-widening audience.”

But Bond No. 9 is all about New York neighborhood scents. So they decided the inspirations for their Warholian pop perfumes would be based on Andy Warhol’s favorite haunts. First among them? The Silver Factory—also known simply as the Factory. In operation from 1964–1968, Warhol’s original studio, hangout, and club central, located in a nondescript building on East 47th Street, acquired visual uniqueness with its aluminum-foil walls. These walls evoked silver-backed mirrors—emblems of the narcissism that suffused the times. The Silver Factory served as a galvanizing forum for artists, silkscreeners, actors, filmmakers, debutants, activists, hustlers, and misfits—all of whom somehow contributed to the creativity. It was here that Warhol emerged as an avant garde filmmaker, pop art progenitor, and all-around superstar. 

The connecting point between the Warhol Foundation and Bond No. 9 is New York. If Andy Warhol was a mirror of his time, he also reflected the vitality and creativity of his adopted city—exactly what Bond No. 9 is about. With the Warhol partnership, Bond No. 9 takes it as its mission to enhance the artist’s dynamic by connecting his vision not just with a line of fragrances, but with another kind of artistry—that of the sense of smell, and to interpret for today the scents of the studios, the clubs, the streets of New York that Warhol frequented and made famous.

The slender bottle, with a background of textured silver, displays a unique graphic inspired by the Campbell’s Soup Can design in bold colors as created by Warhol in a series of his colored Campbell Soup Can silkscreen paintings in 1965: dissonant blocks of turquoise and purple, with the distinctive Campbell’s script in mustard yellow. But—since this is an honest-to-goodness perfume bottle—they’ve substituted their own Bond No. 9 lettering and their distinctive Bond No. 9 logo with Andy Warhol’s name inside, in place of the Campbell’s gold medallion. This bottle is also an example of meta-design: the co-opting of Warhol’s artistic rendering of a world-famous soup can, and its recycling for yet another consumer product. What’s more, taking a cue from the Campbell’s label, which proclaims its soups as Condensed, we’ll be offering their Warhol fragrances as innovative 28 percent perfume concentrates—in between eau de parfum and perfume extract. 

As for the Bond No. 9’s banded keepsake box: for this scent it’s rendered in textured silver, with Warhol’s signature on top. Available only in a 100 ml flacon ( suggested retail price $230), Andy Warhol Silver Factory will be sold at Bond No. 9’s four New York boutiques, at www.bondno9.com, at Saks Fifth Avenue nationwide and at www.saks.com.