markevans.design

Title - La Petite Mort

Client - La Petite Mort

Year - 2015

Discipline - Art direction, branding, packaging & website design

Logo, branding and creative direction for premium men’s underwear La Petite Mort. The brand’s positioning was to create something sophisticated for the wearer rather than the onlooker (see Calvin Klein’s approach to its branding) and something that reflected it was for those in the know i.e not too flashy and a million miles away from both M&S boxers and flashy Calvins'.

A lavish and ornate logo (reflecting the brand's deliberately preposterous name - French slang for orgasm) was designed but used subtly with overprints and varnishes on the packaging as well as discreetly on the garments. Each design and colourway has a story behind it to maintain a playful and sexy (in a Jean-Paul Belmondo kind of way) approach for the brand.

Photography by Flora Hanitijo.

Photography for La Petite Mort’s look book. A continuation from the branding, the look book shot by Flora Hanitijo subtly incorporated the first season’s collection. The antithesis of a Marky Mark Calvin Klein ad, only one pair of boxer shorts is ever seen on and is as far from a catalogue shoot as you could imagine. The rest of the collection is subtly introduced via the pattern on the bed sheets or the curtains, or colours and tones throughout the gentle narrative. Again a reference to how the underwear is seen and worn, it’s not showy or in your face, it’s for the wearer, those in the know, those who look out for and appreciate the attention to detail the label offers.

Launch event held off Arnold Circus London. We installed a wall of Chrysanthemums in the window in reference to the key pieces of the collection. (Traditionally a funeral flower in both Europe and Japan the Chrysanthemum was used as a playful nod to the English translation of the label.)

Subsequent collections take inspiration from broader cultural references. The intention is to be playful (it is underwear after all) but still maintaining both a subtlety and an edge of sophistication. As a result everything from the films of Gus Van Sant through to Prince (shown below in reference to a Madonna quote) and Armani's styling in American Gigolo feature.

Packaging design was featured in Creative Review as part of Progress packaging's advertisement.

lapetitemort.eu

Website design - Mark Evans

Coding - Jonathan Thaw