Italian Alessi have joined forces with Dutch designer Marcel Wanders. Together they are launching a set of room scents and products around that.
Already in January during the fair Maison & Objet and later in Milan for the design week in April we got our hands on the new collection by Marcel Wanders and Alessi. Now the collection landed in Stockholm. The collection consist of scented candels in various sizes, room diffusers and a lava stone. Also we will see a some additions like a snuffer (nice and funny word in English…).
Wander, with his quirky style, has been involved in everything from designing scents to packaging design. I must say that the packaging is very attractive with the collage feeling. Almost the same look as the pictures done by Swedish instagrammer Hanna Wendelbo Hansson. She calls the collage “flower mandala”, and it absolutely has a romantic, dramatic but also very girly approach.
The collection consist of five scents, senses, stages of life or seasons. They are all about bringing nature inside, according to Alessi. Obviously spring, summer, autumn and winter. The fifth element is “transendency”. The four stages of life are represented, so you will find growth, abundancy, metamorphy and enlightment. And again the fifth component is transendancy.
The scents should be a bit secret and more grow on you. As Alessi said, if you take a sniff and know if it is citrus, then you like it or not. With this the scent should grow on you.
From a critical point of view. How does the new collection stand out? I think the pattern on the packaging is amazing, but the products inside speaks a different design language. The lids of the candles have patterns but they are very different from the container.
At a busy press launch, I did not get enough time to see how the scents work. I can appreciate that Alessi/Wanders want to experiment with a thing such as transendancy, but we will see how the scenting works.
Scented homes? I don’t mind scented candles. Again, I appreciate that they try to bring something new to the table, but I need to try it before getting a full report. Are the scents to strong? Burn to fast? Sometimes a company puts enormous resources in getting the right wax, but not on the wick so that the room might get sooty. So, this will be tested at another time.
Longlasting? Sustainable? Necessary? Not really, but I dont really hate it. My friend Holly at Decor8 calls it “sophisticated” and I think this is a good description.
