If you’re in Paris from December 1 to 11, what Cartier is offering with OSNI 2 — Objet Sentant Non Identifié — is precisely a journey into this lesser-known part of the self. The installation, which could almost be defined as a purification ritual, begins with a totally opaque corridor whose destination is a first room plunged into absolute darkness. “In this room, the visitor integrates the darkness and deprives himself of the use of the hardest senses. An act that, in a way, cleanses you and prepares you for the next one,” explains Mathilde Laurent, Cartier’s perfumer. After this cleansing, and continuing down another corridor as dimly lit as the first, we arrive in a room that houses three water curtains.
It is here that the myth of the scented panther, which forms the basis and context of the entire project, comes to life through a luminous feline designed in collaboration with the British studio Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs. The Cartier panther, which “appears, disappears and moves freely around the room,” is delicately infused with La Panthère, the house’s iconic fragrance, generating a subtle and intimate dialogue. “Something divine happens when you perfume, because you connect to God through your soul,” Laurent murmurs about the creative process. “This panther is a representation of the soul of the person who is perfuming, as well as perhaps the soul of the perfume itself,” he concludes.
OSNI 2 — Cartier
2 Rue Robert Esnault-Pelterie
75007 Paris 7
