Tempting Trouble

BOTTLING BOUCHERON'S LATEST SCENT

For her marriage, in 1987, Solange Azagury-Partridge designed her own engagement ring, a round, gold dome with an uncut diamond sticking out of one side—"like a lump of crystallized sugar, murky and gray," she says. "I didn't really want a sparkly diamond. I wanted something more discreet and personal." So many people asked her where she found such an unusual ring that she went into business, eventually opening her eponymous shop in Notting Hill. The reigning social set quickly took notice, with Stella McCartney, Madonna, Nicole Kidman, and Sadie Frost joining the London-born designer's hip clientele.

Three years ago, the Establishment came calling when Boucheron, the venerable Parisian jewelry house, asked AzaguryPartridge to become its creative director. Since then, the designer, who spends half the week in Paris and half at home in London with her husband and two children, has integrated her highly contemporary style with the elegant traditions of Boucheron, which has been headquartered in the Place Vendome for a century and a half.

Her latest creation is the bottle for Boucheron's provocative new fragrance, Trouble: an opulent cube of black-ruby glass with a green-eyed golden serpent coiling around the neck. "When a snake sheds its skin, it's all about renewal and temptation—and perfume is made to make women tempting, isn't it?" says Azagury-Partridge.

Metis oui, madatne. Just ask that snake.

LESLIE BENNETTS