The Short History of the Bottle (and the Atomizer)
Before the spray you use today, perfume was applied in a very different way — a short history of how the perfume bottle became the shape we know.
For centuries, perfume was stored and applied with no mechanism at all — sealed glass or ceramic bottles, applied directly with a small rod or with one's own hands. The now-automatic gesture of "spritzing" perfume is a relatively recent invention in the long history of perfumery.
The atomizer (the spray mechanism) only became popular in the early 20th century, driven by the French fashion industry — it was around this time that the perfume bottle began to be designed as both a design object and a functional container, a tradition that houses like Baccarat (a crystal maker, not only perfume) helped establish.
Today, bottle design remains as much a part of a fragrance's identity as the scent itself — often it's the first thing we recognize on a shelf, even before smelling it.