Style Edit: Guerlain marks 170 years of the Bee Bottle with an Exceptional Pieces collaboration with Begüm Khan to complement the French luxury brand’s Imagine Guerlain perfume

Dec 18 , 2023

Guerlain’s Bee Bottle is opulent indeed. Photos: Handout

Tradition and innovation don’t always go hand in hand, but almost two hundred years of humble heritage and careful craftsmanship later, French luxury beauty brand Guerlain is still managing to reinvent itself – one magnificent métiers d’art creation at a time.

“Guerlain doesn’t need to be commercial,” says jewellery designer Begüm Kiroglu of Begüm Khan, her eponymous jewellery brand, with whom Guerlain chose to collaborate for this festive season’s latest offerings. “So many other brands, they do fashion, they work with the most famous faces. But Guerlain [has] such a strong traditional history and all these years [of] expertise. I don’t think they need to be commercial.”

Jewellery designer Begüm Kiroglu of Istanbul-based luxury brand Begüm Khan

Indeed, few competitors have devoted themselves to the art of beauty, and the beauty of art, in the way Guerlain has. The brand’s meticulously crafted Exceptional Pieces are testament to that pioneering spirit – a master class in both perfumery and artistry.

“Since the beginning in 1828, Guerlain’s founder collaborated with the best artists of the time,” says Ann-Caroline Prazan, the brand’s director of art, culture and heritage. Like artwork, Prazan says, “We sell something totally emotional, because fragrance is emotional, even skincare and make-up.”

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Guerlain’s director of art, culture and heritage, Ann-Caroline Prazan

Among those Exceptional Pieces is the Bee Bottle, a signature piece that this year is celebrating its 170th anniversary. To mark the occasion, Kiroglu has worked with Guerlain on a series of elaborate works of art that pay tribute to the brand’s opulent and illustrious heritage, and complement the dreamy Imagine Guerlain perfume.

Those works begin with the Bee Bottle by Begüm Khan itself: hand-painted in 24k gold and adorned with a beautiful jewelled beetle pavé set with 440 carefully laid-out gems, and limited to just 40 numbered pieces worldwide.

The beetle, a Begüm Khan signature, features prominently on Guerlain’s new Bee Bottle

The slightly smaller but no less extravagant Imagine Guerlain 2023 Millésime by Begüm Khan shows the bee in the middle of a radiant golden flower of 24k gold-plated bronze, surrounded by 37 sparkling handset gems.

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Having previously teamed up to create an earlier set of Exceptional Pieces in 2021, the synergy between Guerlain and Begüm is evident in these new offerings. While Begüm’s own brand has only been in business for a decade, Prazan says the young designer’s knowledge of and respect for past traditions is what makes her a perfect partner for Guerlain.

“You can’t be a brand of the future if you don’t know your past,” Prazan says. “Young people all over the world need true brands which have a heritage, a real story, not something fake, not marketing. We need sincerity.”

The Imagine Guerlain 2023 Millésime by Begüm Khan

Begüm has sincerity in spades. “Begüm is loyal,” Prazan continues, “beautiful like her jewellery, inside and out. When I discovered the past of her brand, even the boutique in Istanbul – it’s a piece of art.” Having previously studied in Milan and Shanghai, the jewels designer draws on influences from both Ottoman and Eastern art, featuring everything from dinosaurs to futuristic eye motifs in her designs.

Jewellery designer Begüm Kiroglu at work

“Since the beginning of my brand, I’ve used a lot of animals, especially those that aren’t traditionally accepted as pretty – so it’s more beetles, turtles and cockroaches for me than butterflies and birds,” says Begüm. “And when we first met with Guerlain, I said of course, we have to create the bee – which is also one of the awkward animals. When you look at the bee really closely, it [looks] strange. You don’t want to touch it,” she laughs.

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The bee has served as Guerlain’s symbol since 1853, when Empress Eugenie asked for bespoke perfume from the brand for her wedding to Napoleon III, who promptly made Guerlain the official perfumer of the court

While Begüm has celebrated those “ugly” animals with her beautiful creations over the years, Guerlain continues to proudly bear the humble, hard-working and perhaps a tad misunderstood bee as its emblem, championing these heroes of nature.

“We’ve protected bees for 20 years now,” says Prazan. “With Unesco, we’ve trained women to become beekeepers all over the world. Without bees, we won’t have any more flowers, any more food. We will [pass] a blank planet to our children. Because Guerlain always sees the future, it’s important for us to protect the bee – to protect nature.”

“Every generation, Guerlain is a pioneer brand,” Prazan continues. “Guerlain invented the most important products used all day long: the first lipsticks, the first whitening cream, the first modern perfume – Jicky – in 1889.” Much as this season’s Exceptional Pieces mark another new chapter of artistic excellence with their blend of luxury fragrances and high jewellery, it’s clear Guerlain is just getting started.

Style Edit

This is the second time that jewellery designer Begüm Kiroglu’s brand has worked on a collection of Guerlain’s Exceptional Pieces – the last was in 2021
Ann-Caroline Prazan, Guerlain’s director of art, culture and heritage, talks about the importance of bees, while Kiroglu favours some of nature’s less obvious stars including beetles