Bond no. 9 Bottle Design Competition: Make Sure Yours Doesn't Stink

You may or may not be familiar with Bond no.9. Recognizable by the unique bottle design, Bond no.9 makes 34 different fragrances inspired by the city of New York.




The name of this fragrance collection, Bond No. 9, is also the address of its headquarters boutique at 9 Bond Street, in NoHo. They explain their mission as a dual purpose one: To restore artistry to perfumery, and to mark every New York neighborhood with a scent of its own. Each fragrance represents a specific downtown, midtown, or uptown locale or a city-wide sensibility.



They just introduced their latest addition, Brooklyn, which comes in a fun graffiti scrawled bottle. But... in addition to that, Bond no. 9 is having a design competition right now to create the additional visuals for this scent. Unfortunately, there's only 2 weeks left (it's not very well publicized), so... get cracking!



Throughout March 2009, Bond No. 9 invites everyone—amateurs and artists alike—to join their Brooklyn Bottle Design Competition and create additional visuals for this contemporary male-oriented cardamom-cedarwood eau de parfum.

You get a template to download like the one shown below:


Ground Rules:
* Create your design to fit within the outline of the Bond No. 9 superstar flacon and to include our circular “token” logo. * Any style, figurative or abstract, is fine with us.

* Inspiration can come from anywhere in Brooklyn—DUMBO, Park Slope, Flatbush, Canarsie, Midwood, Bay Ridge, et al.—or from the very idea of Brooklyn.

* Any medium is okay: oil, acrylic, watercolor, house paint, pastel, crayon, Magic Marker, makeup—even a ballpoint pen or pencil will do.

* Completed designs should be submitted to contactus@bondno9.com or Bond No. 9, 9 Bond Street, New York, NY 10012 by March 31, 2009.

After the two winners are chosen in early April, they’ll put the victorious designs into production, with the winner’s names displayed on the bottles. Each winner will also receive one bottle of Brooklyn per month for a year.

Perhaps some of their more interestingly designed bottles or their special limited editions or will inspire you:


Above: Spirit of Peace, Bryant Park and Andy Warhol Lexington Bottle designs.

Above: West Side

above: Andy Warhol Union Square

Above: Andy Warhol Silver factory

above: Andy Warhol Lexington Street Signature (complete with Robert Lee Morris necklace)

Above: Wall Street and Eau de New York

above: Chinatown regular and Swarovski limited version

above: Fire Island and Coney Island scents

above: Bleecker Street regular and Swarovski limited version

above: Saks Fifth Avenue for Her regular and Limited-Edition Swarovski Snowflake

So, download the template here and start designing!


Shop Bond no. 9 for the fragrances above plus more like candles, gifts and samples.

The Most Outrageous Watches I've Ever Seen & I Still Can't Tell What Time It Is.

HD3 Complications, Icelink, and Hautlence are three companies that make very high-end complicated timepieces that, although very pricey and admirably designed, are super difficult to tell what time it is. If you can get past that simple fact (lol) , take a look at the design, the workmanship, technology and plain audaciousness of these horological masterpieces.

Although all the companies offer various models, I'm blown away by the HD3's Idalgo XTII and the Biaxial, Icelink's 6Timezone Snow watches and Hautlence's models in particular. Frankly, I find it almost impossible to tell what time it is on any of these watches, but that doesn't stop me from staring at their faces.



HD3 complications is a company comprised of three different designers; artists Jorg Hysek, Valérie Ursenbacher and Fabrice Gonet working together to create luxury horological art. The Idalgo XTII and the Biaxial are two of their six lines of watches. The Idalgo XTII has side by side faces available in various 18k gold or titanium bezels and colored accents and can be purchased with or without diamonds on the bezel.

The HD3 Idalgo XTII:






Like I said, HD3 makes other models as well, here's their Biaxial Watch, another one from which I cannot deduce what time it is:

The HD3 Biaxial Watch:




HD3 COMPLICATION
Domaine Ganymède
Case postale 95
1184 Luins, Switzerland
T: +41 (0)21 642 03 03
F: +41 (0)21 642 03 04
E: sales@hd3complication.com
URL: www.hd3complication.com




Icelink's new "snow" collection is new to their line. Slightly different from their 6Timezone model, the Snow version has one of the six faces filled with little loose diamonds. The model is available as a small case or a large case style. Available in white, rose or yellow gold with white, black or white mother-of pearl faces, the watches are hard to ignore. See for yourself.

The 6Timezone Snow Collection:






They also come without diamonds on the bezel as well (you know, if you want to be a little subtle):






About Icelink:
In 2007 Switzerland's watchmakers welcomed into their ranks a new brand inspired by its founder Andy Sogoyan, a mover-and-shaker without complex and veritable icon of Los Angeles craziness. He is the incarnation of the era of no complex, undeniably the inventor of the gemwatch. IceLink continues to overturn conventional watchmaking.

From its Geneva headquarters, the Icelink gemwatch brand is poised to conquer new markets in Asia and the Far East due to the original design and ingenious concept of the new 6Timezone Snow collection. Thanks to its flagship 6Timezone collection, the brand already occupies key territory such as Europe, Russia, the Middle East and the United States.

Icelink
610 S. Broadway, 10th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90014, USA
T: +1 213 622 7707
F: +1 213 622 2624
E: info@icelinkwatch.com
URL: www.icelinktv.com




Hautlence gets its name from an anagram for Neuchatel, the city in Switzerland. Launched in 2004 by Renaud de Retz, Guillaume Tatu, Jean Plazenet, Jean Christophe Chopin and Alain de Forges , they have three collections, the HL, the HLS and most recently having added the HLQ series in 2008. All three models are made with various high quality metals like 18k yellow, white or rose gold or titanium and, unlike the other two companies are not available with diamonds.

Once again, these models have amazing design and movement. All are limited to production of only 88. Each have hand wound mechanical movement and feature exposed elements. Easy to read? No way. But then again, that's why they are included in this post. And a special thanks to Scott Rench for introducing me to Hautlence.

Their first model, The HL, which comes in 8 combinations of colors and materials:










the HL S was introduced in 2006 (available in 9 variations):





The HL Q (available in 5 variations) was introduced in 2008:







Hautlence S.A.
6 places des Halles
2000 Neuchatel Switzerland
tel +41 32 722 65 50
fax +41 32 722 65 59
info@hautlence.com

Prices? if you have to ask, you can't afford them. None of these are available on the internet for obvious reasons. To inquire about availability or prices, please contact the manufacturers.

And would someone please tell me what time it is?

If watches are your weakness, be sure to check out the following posts:

•Cartier's 3D Santos Triple 100 and Le Cirque Animalia and More

•Kudoke: Luxury Skeletel Watches From Germany

•Marc Newsom's IKEPOD watches

•Watches Made From Actual Titanic Parts

•Watches Made With Real Moon Dust

•Some Wild Watches from Storm,London

•Watches Without Hands Or Numbers: Abacus

•SwissKubik's Hip Watchwinders