Bond No. 9’s Bryant Park:
The Scent of New York’s Frenzied Fashionistas Descending on a Lush Oasis of WiFe’ed Greenery Just One Block from Times Square
(Who Would Ever Have Guessed?)
Imagine an oasis of unflappably serene greenery, improbably nestled in a canyon of skyscrapers down the street from Times Square, in the heart of midtown Manhattan. Now, add chandelier-lit mega-tents, A-list designers, world-class models, press, buyers, and, oh yes, racks and racks of next year’s clothes, and you have the paradox that is today’s Bryant Park—the world’s most frenetic style arena equipped with shrubbery, flower beds, a carousel, and WiFi too.
Bryant Park is the inspiration for and name of Bond No. 9’s 28th and most fashion-oriented eau de parfum: a rose-patchouli concoction with pink pepper added for dissonance. This sublime park, a formidable backyard for the Beaux Arts 42nd Street headquarters of the New York Public Library, is itself a living, breathing contradiction. Once a Native American hunting ground, later a potter’s field, and then the site for a world’s fair, it acquired a disreputable reputation by the 1930s. In the 1950s, the park was redesigned in the French classical tradition, with a large central lawn, elegant pathways, stone balustrades, an oval plaza, and a fountain. That didn’t help. By the ‘70s, it had once again sunk into decline.
But the 1990s brought urban renewalists and fashionistas, and with them summer music, movies, a Christmas market, and the semi-annual New York Fashion Week—which has changed Bryant Park forever—giving it a cachet to match its sublime scenery. While the fate of Fashion Week in this location hangs in the balance, one thing is sure: it has bestowed on this green-space an aura of style that is part of its contemporary legacy.
The Bryant Park artist-designed bottle, with its swirls of pink, lavender, and black on a white background, recalls the exuberant gossamer silk pre-Mod textiles of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s—just when style was re-defining itself.
Bryant Park is available at all four Bond No. 9 stores in New York, countrywide at selected branches of Saks Fifth Avenue and internationally at Harvey Nichols, UK, Paris Gallery, U.A.E, and in Lane Crawford, Hong Kong.
Launch Date: March 1st 2007
Besides being sold in its 3.4 oz. artist-designed superstar bottle and box presentation ($185), 1.7oz travel size ($125) and by the ounce ($45), either in a 2-ounce basic spray flacon with gilt honeycomb cap ($40-$150) or in our unique vintage or art bottles, featured in a wide variety of designs ($60 - $200).