Salvatore Ferragamo unveils new silver-embossed, rainbow holographic fragrance packaging

02 Aug 2019 --- Italian luxury goods company Salvatore Ferragamo has selected Bolognese packaging company Industrialbox and the high quality of Sappi’s Algro Design to create the packaging for its new women’s fragrance, Amo. Other partners involved in the design process include South African woodfibre products manufacturer Sappi, who produced the Algro Design paperboard used in the final product, and Italian paper mill Plastic Stratosfera, which was in charge of laminating the holographic film.

The new paperboard packaging for Salvatore Ferragamo’s fragrance, Amo, is described by the brand as “exuding style and elegance,” displaying white trails of embossed details in silver. The attractive glacial motif on the box is complemented with a rainbow holographic finish and with its interior in a pale pink – the same shade as the bottle’s contents. The box’s design is rounded off by a cascade of small prisms, which reflect the light.

Product research
Industrialbox is responsible for creating packaging solutions for various Salvatore Ferragamo branded fragrances, including Signorina and Emozione, and the exclusive Tuscan Soul line. For the latest fragrance, the Bolognese company’s team has been involved in the process since the new perfume was presented to a select group of customers, partners and collaborators at Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy.A particular brass cliché was chosen for embossing the prisms, along with Sappi’s 330-gram Algro Design paperboard.

Starting with ideas and creative suggestions from Salvatore Ferragamo, who came up with the packaging’s design, Industrialbox researched the best way to achieve these ideas. This involved beginning with the primary packaging – the perfume’s glass bottle – and considering the box’s structural design. Shipping tests were conducted to check its sturdiness.

“A box or packaging solution of this kind is never just a box or packaging solution. It must be able to protect its contents – in this case a luxury item that is destined to suffer numerous external stresses, for example, from exposure to extreme temperatures. The packaging’s purpose is to enclose and showcase the product, convey key branding messages and keep the contents intact,” says Carlo Gregori, President of Industrialbox. The file with the structural design was then sent to the client who applied the chosen graphics to the packaging and sent it back to Industrialbox.

Prototyping
The next stage comprised of technical testing, with the initial goal of finding the right combination of materials, printing and finishing technology. One of the primary issues was the choice of paperboard: not only did it need to have a perfect white tone, but it also needed to boast a high level of elasticity, necessary to realize the pointed prism details. At the same time, the paperboard needed to offer constant mechanical resistance, so as to allow a range of successive processes, while maintaining the print and finishing register.

After several tests and mock-ups, the combination of a particular brass cliché, selected for embossing the prisms, combined with Sappi’s 330 gsm Algro Design Paperboard, offered the best solution.

The packaging’s interior is intended to surprise consumers with the same pale pink as the fragrance bottle’s contents.“The Algro Design paperboard by Sappi was the only feasible option we had to realise this design, from both an aesthetic and a technical point of view,” explains Carlo Gregori. “It was our client Ferragamo’s biggest wish to achieve a design that not only showcases a flawless white finish, but also fully meets all the technical requirements imposed by processing: elasticity for the embossed elements and optimal mechanical resistance, which allows us to realise all the decorative details perfectly in register.”

Production
The packaging proposal finally approved by the Ferragamo team, who led the project, involved several steps: first, the paperboard was printed with UV offset technology before undergoing a process of cold lamination. Plastic Stratosfera carried out this lamination process with a special holographic film produced in the US. The card was printed again to ensure the perfect opacity of the black font. Next, the prisms in relief were created in register through debossing. At this stage, the card was die-cut, folded and glued.

Algro Design by Sappi
Algro Design by Sappi is one of the brand’s most popular solid bleached board (SBB) paperboard variants. The material is known for its bright and uniform white colour, its high resistance to light and its soft and silky surface. Algro Design is available in three versions:

• Algro Design, with double coating on the front and without coating on the back, available in weights between 160 and 400 gsm;
• Algro Design Card, with double coating on the front and single coating on the back, available in weights between 235 and 345 gsm;
• Algro Design Duo, with double symmetrical coating on the front and back, available in weights between 250 and 500 gsm.

Edited by Benjamin Ferrer