Frani’s Flowers

Thank you to Frani Rothman for donating her gorgeous glass flower arrangement to WMODA. The museum is honored to have received this special gift when Frani downsized her home. The vase and flowers were created by Phil O’Reilly, a Seattle based glass artist who studied and worked with Dale Chihuly. Since 1987, he has also been the owner of Olympic Color Rods, a thriving glass color business. Frani’s glass flowers will never wilt or fade and will go on display in our new museum in Hollywood.

Frani’s Fragrance

Flowers are also blooming on the Mariella Burani factice for the Bouquet de Roses fragrance, one of four large display perfume bottles donated by Frani. Factice replicas were used for advertising fragrances in store settings and precisely echo the original perfume bottles. They were offered to merchants filled with colored liquid to resemble the perfume. Frani collected these beautiful factice bottles in the 1990s and she has given us perfume bottles promoting Fleur D’ Eau by Rochas, Classique by Jean-Paul Gaultier and Sirene by Vicky Tiel.

Frani’s factice bottles will join the scent bottles in the WMODA collection made by René Lalique. In 1907, Lalique’s partnership with Francois Coty revolutionized the perfume industry as his glass workshop provided attractive perfume bottles at affordable prices. As their collaboration progressed, Lalique devoted less of his time to jewelry design and more to developing industrial glass-making techniques for perfume bottles. By the Paris Exhibition of 1925, René Lalique was acclaimed as the Master of Art Deco glass.

Lalique continued to make perfume bottles throughout the 1930s for Molinard, Roger & Gallet, Worth and others as well as making his own Lalique branded bottles to fill with a favorite fragrance. In 1992, Lalique’s grand-daughter, Marie-Claude, introduced their own brand of perfume, Lalique by Lalique, and the company continues to combine creativity in bottle design with exceptional fragrances.

Lalique’s glass art will be a feature of the Art Deco exhibition at the new WMODA museum in Hollywood.