Stephen Jones in black regalia to match his inkwell of a perfume flacon
Milliner Stephen Jones who described his first signature scent as being "... a violet that's been hit by a meteorite," resting on both an "innocent" and "otherworldly" interpretation of the delicate floral scent, just launched his fragrance at Dover Street Market in London. Adrian Joffe, president and managing director of Comme des Garçons insisted that he and perfumer Antoine Maisondieu were only there to second the milliner in giving birth to his dream perfume "The idea for us it to produce, not create. We wouldn't want to do a
perfume with someone if they didn't have a creative spirit,"
On a side fashion note, Stephen Jones is the designer behind the hats for the upcoming biopic about Chanel, Coco Avant Chanel.
We announced the other day that the house of Guerlain was taking to the street for their new perfume, Guerlain Homme.
The jungle display at Opéra Garnier for the new Guerlain Homme looked nice but the atmosphere was flat. The only emotional reaction the event elicited in me was a smile after I heard, several times over, the line from the Guerlain Homme commercial by Jean-Paul Goude booming across the street: "pour l'animal qui dort en vous" " for the animal that sleeps in you". Contrasted with the sedate ambience and the unconcerned or weary airs of the tourists resting on the steps of the opéra, many of them white-haired, it was rather amusing.
This attempt to reach out to urbanites where they are to be found, on the street, seemed to be marred by a lack of staff support from Guerlain. If the decoration was pleasing to the eye and the Goude commercial well-visible and audible from a distance, the impact on passers-by seemed minimal. A couple of fragrance models were supposed to cover the large stretch of sidewalk girding the front of the opera house and they were huddled together in exactly the same spot joking between themselves while spraying almost absent-mindedly on strips of paper without offering any eye contact to their consenting victims. The lack of conviction was palpable. There were no Mojitos in sight to refresh potential customers and I realized after leaving the scene that the air smelled of nothing...
Here is a picture of the 150 m2 set-up by Guerlain at La Défense to showcase their new cologne, prior to it opening to visitors.
So, if you have the time you can swing by to get a spritz of Guerlain Homme until 19h 30 today. They are distributing alcohol-free Mojitos, samples and coupons.
Diesel has set up a micro-website for their new flanker to Diesel Fuel for Life, Unlimited. You can watch the commercial which is like a cross between the movie Barry Lyndon and a pajama party set in the Jazz Age. The new scent is being advertised as "for women only".
Wear the perfume, snap your fingers and see what happens. The commercial for 1 Million by Paco Rabanne, for men, could be a variation on the it's-a-click-away experience in the internet age. Here everything is a snap-of-the-fingers-away.
Model Matt Gordon is the fantasized big player/dreamer who makes all his desires come true.
Here are two slightly different versions of the TV commercial for Magnifique by Lancôme featuring Anne Hathaway. The second one is for Macy's and skips on the "You are unique, you are Magnifique" line.
Both the TV and print ads were shot by Peter Lindbergh. The male model is Roman Seefeldt.
Nudity on the street was a chosen theme for Agent Provocateur to advertise their lingerie line at the beginning of this year. Lush, another British beauty brand, is now seeing a link between proud derrieres offered to the four winds and a green message protesting the overuse of packaging in the beauty industry.
Once in a while you get to happen on a publicized picture of a perfumer holding his or her oeuvre. Most often treated as "éminences grises", men and women of the shadows in the recent past in order not to deflect attention from the brands, they now appear more frequently in the limelight.
Here is a portrait of perfumer Carlos Benaïm presenting his latest perfume, Bulgari Jasmin Noir (he is also the author of the more widely known and wonderful Elizabeth Taylor White Diamonds). You can see other pictures from the fragrance bash thrown for the new Bulgari scent here.
I don't know if I have shared one particular Franco-American TV anecdote with you before on this blog, but it is worth retelling in the context of the "controversy" unleashed by Eva Mendes posing suggestively for the upcoming perfume by Calvin Klein, Secret Obsession. But first the context. As we all know, there are no-nos everywhere, the interesting part is that they differ according to the predominant cultural values that are exhibited or advertised by said-culture or sub-culture. In other words, certain things are done in the open and others recede in the background but it is safe to assume that it is not because sexually suggestive images are deemed improper for wider TV-consumption that America is a less sexually active country than others which would, officially, not bat an eyelash at the sight of Eva Mendes's nipple or backside and more generally speaking, soft erotic choreography staged by Fabien Baron to sell Secret Obsession...
Thanks to Octavian, who called my attention to a video on You Tube where Romano Ricci is explaining his line of perfumes Juliette Has A Gun, you can discover more of the personality of the founder of this new-generation-Ricci (of Nina-Ricci fame) niche perfume house,
Here is the ad for the new duo of men and women fragrances by Bijan called V.I.P., from Beauty Fashion, June 2008.
The ad concept: playing the celebs card without hiring any. Suggestion to the consumer: just pretend you are one, adopt the attitude and the accessories and subito presto you look glamorous and famous.
"The quintessence of animal instinct, yet for this very reason often repressed or misunderstood, the sense of smell is our Guerlain man's constant ally..."
Jean-Paul Goude who is well-known for his strikingly creative visual style has designed an intriguing story and stunning visuals for the upcoming Guerlain Homme perfume. His advertising for Chanel Egoïste is one of the most unforgettable ones I have seen; he considers it by the way to be his best work in advertising. In France, he also left his mark on the collective psyche by organizing an over-the-top parade on the Champs-Elysées for the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989.
Brazilian model Renne Castrucci is the star of the show for the new Guerlain cologne having been asked to embody a man that has not forgotten his animal side. As the press release says the effect is supposed to be "...andevery woman on earth will long to be "Jane". or even Bagheera."...
Actress Sarah Jessica Parker talks about her latest Covet Pure Bloom explaining it was inspired by the scents of Hawaii and of the Pikake flower in particular. To her, it is more of a seasonal fragrance and offers something more unique than Lovely although the latter is admittedly full of social graces. She says that she wears all of her perfumes "religiously".
Covet Pure Bloom is currently exclusively available on HSN. A kit including a 1.7 oz bottle of the new scent and a solid perfume compact of Covet, the second one of her perfumes, is available for $52.
Following up on the critique of the launch party of Prada Infusion d'Homme (see previous post), here is another point of view that explains the conceptual and artistic ambitions of Prada's non-conventional perfume advertising project, which actually aims to encourage the workings of your imagination rather than immediately make you buy the product. It is an anti-impulse-buying position and more about becoming attached to the universe represented by the perfume, its unmistakable coolness and sense of difference, thus touching upon one of the big instincts for perfume-buying: to set yourself apart with a few drops of scent and delineate your personal space in a society that can be alienating,
"Prada has launched a project that distances itself from traditional perfume advertising to obtain more coherent results with its contemporary vision of the world of today’s men.
This cultural project overturns traditional thought and breaks away from the usual easy approach to follow a new experimental path. It prompts and encourages a specific thought process in the viewer that elicits absolutely personal sensations.....
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