A house that bottles one thing.
Maison Ondée makes five perfumes, and all five smell of rain. Not of flowers after rain, or of an idea of freshness. Rain itself, at five different weights, from the drizzle that barely wets a sleeve to the storm that sends a street indoors.
The name is the French word for a sudden light shower, the kind that clears before anyone has found an umbrella. It is pronounced on-day, which is a small gift to English speakers: the brand says today before it says anything else.
Everything the house makes should feel like the moment after you decide to stay out in it.
Five letter Os, dropped in water.
The mark is the O of Ondée repeated five times, once for each perfume. Each ring keeps the stress of a Didone letter, heavy at the sides and a hairline at top and bottom, so it reads as type before it reads as water.
The rings narrow towards the centre at a fixed ratio of 1 : .78 : .57 : .37 : .19, and the weight falls with them. Never redraw it, and never add a sixth ring.
Leave one ring's width clear on every side. Below 24 mm use the mark alone, and below 10 mm use the word alone.
Bronze foil is for packaging only. On a screen, ink or paper will always look better than a brown that is pretending to be metal.
Never tint, outline, animate into a splash, or place the mark on a photograph of an actual ripple.
Eight wet streets in Paris were enough to convince us the type should be Didone, because rain, like a Bodoni, is made of hairlines and sudden weight.
Five weights of rain
| Name | What falls | The smell | Concentration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bruine | Mist that wets you sideways | Cold air, iris, damp linen on a line | Eau de cologne |
| Crachin | The fine drizzle of Brittany | Sea salt, gorse, wet rope, a little smoke | Eau de toilette |
| Giboulée | The short bright showers of March | Crushed nettle, hyacinth, cold stone in sunlight | Eau de parfum |
| Averse | A downpour you run from | Hot pavement, vetiver, wet wool, black tea | Eau de parfum |
| Orage | The storm, and the air before it | Ozone accord, oakmoss, iron, burnt sugar, ambergris substitute | Extrait |
The box should get better in the rain.
A rigid slate-grey board, 2,400 gsm, finished with a water-beading coat so that droplets stand on the lid and run along the ripple. The mark is blind-debossed across the whole lid and bleeds off one corner, so no two faces of a stack line up.
Inside, grey wool felt holds the bottle, and the only ink in the entire pack is a Tenor Sans line under the lid giving the batch and the date it last rained on the atelier.
sidonie@ondee.example
Chère Madame,
Your bottle of Averse left the atelier this morning. It should arrive with the next weather front, which the forecast places at Thursday.
We suggest you open it near a window, and that you do not go out to buy an umbrella.
Sidonie
How the house speaks
Dry, in both senses. Maison Ondée talks about weather the way a French farmer does: at length, without sentiment, and always slightly pleased when it turns bad.
| We write | We never write |
|---|---|
| Il va pleuvoir. | Awaken your senses. |
| Best worn outdoors, in the wrong shoes. | An invitation to a journey. |
| Lasts about as long as a good argument. | Long-lasting luxury. |
| Closed. It has stopped raining. | Back soon! |