Viktor&Rolf Flowerbomb: Four Bottles and the Pun Behind Them

In 1999 a model named Maggie Rizer stood on a turntable in Paris while two designers dressed her, layer after layer, until she wore nine at once. That was the Russian Doll show, and it is still the fastest way I know to explain Viktor&Rolf. Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren met at the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design and founded the house in 1993. Their early years were installations and posters, not clothes a store could order. The idea came first and the garment second, which is why their biggest commercial hit began as a pun. Flowerbomb arrived in 2005 with a runway show of black looks, motorcycle helmets and ever larger bows, and the bottle kept the joke: faceted like a diamond, shaped like a grenade. Everything in this edit comes from that bottle, so I sorted it by mood. Start with the original Flowerbomb perfume, a bouquet of peony accord, centifolia rose and freesia over patchouli, now in a refillable bottle. Extreme is the louder cousin, with raspberry, rose absolute and vanilla bean in matte pink glass. Tiger Lily goes tropical with coconut milk and mango, and Pretty Peony is strawberry over musk, the most playful of the four.

Sets are where I tell people to begin with Flowerbomb, because a grenade bottle is a big commitment to a scent you have only met on a paper strip. The Mini Flowerbomb Eau de Parfum Set holds two travel sizes of the original, with jasmine, orange blossom and patchouli in the notes. The Flowerbomb Mini Perfume Set is the one I would hand to a friend who cannot decide, since it pairs the original with Pretty Peony in two 7 mL bottles. The Duo Gift Set has a full size plus a travel spray, so one lives on the dresser and one lives in the bag. The Mother's Day Set is the collector's pick: a limited edition bottle with a glossy black painterly motif by the British artist Blue Farrier, and a scent that adds praline to the jasmine and freesia. A practical test: wear the original on one wrist and Pretty Peony on the other for a full afternoon before you pick a favorite. Viktor&Rolf has always treated a bottle like a small art object, and these sets let you try the idea before you keep it.

Spicebomb is the same idea turned around. It debuted in 2012 as the masculine counterpart to Flowerbomb, in a grenade-shaped bottle, and the perfumer was Olivier Polge, who also worked on Flowerbomb. Spicebomb Extreme followed in 2015 as a stronger eau de parfum, and its notes read like a spice rack: lavender, caraway, black pepper, tobacco and a little vanilla, in a black bottle with a gold band. Night Vision Eau de Parfum goes greener, with black pepper, black chili, clove and nutmeg over a green resinous accord and clary sage, plus a sharp lemon on top. Its bottle wears a green band meant to echo the hue seen through night vision. The Night Vision set pairs a full size with a travel spray, and the Extreme 3-piece set brings a full size and two travel sprays. A Spicebomb cologne like this gets louder as it warms, so one spray on the chest under a shirt is plenty. What I would skip is the habit of spraying spicy amber into the air and walking through it, because the pepper and clove arrive hard before the base has settled. Pulse points only, and give it ten minutes before you add more.

What I like about Viktor&Rolf is that the joke has stayed funny for more than thirty years. Two designers who once put a model on a turntable also put a flower and a grenade in the same sentence, and a whole fragrance shelf grew out of it. Whichever bottle you choose, you are choosing a wink: softness with a little danger underneath. I would start with a set and let the scent decide whether the grenade earns a permanent place on the dresser. If you want to keep browsing, I also put together Spicebomb Extreme, the Grenade Bottle That Smells Like Tobacco and Vanilla.