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

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

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.”

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.