About the Design

This perfume collector’s set is for the Critically Acclaimed film, Howl’s Moving Castle directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The design elements directly reference the movie’s main characters, Howl, Sophie, and the Witch of the Waste’s, and how their physical transformations enable their character transformation.

The perfumes each represent a character’s physical transformation from the movie. The hatbox packaging was inspired by Sophie’s occupation; a hat maker. The bottle sculptures are all hand crafted with air dry clay and painted with acrylic. Each design represents the physical transformations each character went through.

Howl, the talented wizard, runs away from all his problems and responsibilities, including from the draft for the war waging between neighboring nations. He transforms into this pitch black ,beastly crow, along with coloring his hair and having several pseudonyms to escape as much responsibility as possible.

Sophie, the hatter, is this quiet woman working in her mother’s hat shop, when suddenly, the Witch of the Waste appears! When she turns away the Witch from the shop, she finds herself turned into 90 year old woman. Although the transformation changes her physically, I thought the best way to represent the change is her hair ribbon. Her hair starts out long, which she then cuts, losing the ribbon in the process to save Howl.

The Witch of the Waste is a powerful witch that has escaped authorities for years, even decades! She constantly uses magic and potions to keep herself young looking. She is greedy and selfish, only thinking of herself. At one point, she profusely smokes a charmed cigarette to weaken the state of Howl to steal his heart.