Victoria: 2669 posts

Several years ago I walked around an exhibit devoted to Marlene Dietrich’s collection at the fashion museum in Paris, The Musée Galliera. Among her famous pant suits, feather dresses and sexy lingerie (you had to look through a peep hole for a glimpse of her lacy underthings), were bottles of  cosmetics and tanning oils. One was labelled rose, and another–jasmine.  I don’t remember who made them or what the bottles looked like, but the image of Dietrich stretching out her gorgeous long legs, her glistening skin catching the fine granules of sand, is what surfaces in my mind whenever I hear the star’s name. I can almost smell the rose tanning oil and salt on her warm skin.

I don’t know if in creating La Fille de Berlin, the dream team of Serge Lutens and Christopher Sheldrake thought about Dietrich, and I have never visited Berlin to understand their source of inspiration completely. For me though, it’s a perfume that I imagine Dietrich wearing. It’s beautiful and surprising, but with a dark side. A classical Lutens, in other words.

Continue reading →

For spring, Tocca is inspired by lily of the valley. The newest fragrance Liliana is a tribute to this delicate spring flower. Liliana includes notes of Italian bergamot, neroli, watery peach, lily of the valley, gardenia, white peony, sandalwood, musk, benzoin, and patchouli.

“A lush, green, rolling lawn is the setting for a roaring 20s party in full swing. Liliana conjures a reveler in the bloom of youth dancing the Charleston amidst flowing bottles of champagne and a spirited jazz band. The lowering sun casts a golden sparkle as an intoxicating bouquet of muguet, gardenia and peony wafts from the gardens, filling the night with joie de vivre.”

Tocca Liliana Eau de Parfum will be available at Sephora, Anthropologie and Barney’s stores, and online at tocca.com, sephora.com, bluemercury.com, and beauty.com beginning March 2013. 50ml/$68 Via press release

I have a new article in the Financial Times Magazine’s fragrance column, The inspirational aromas of tea ­– in a bottle. This time, it is all about tea. While Andy has been tempting  us with his tea descriptions, I explored the tea notes in perfumes. I hope that you will enjoy my selection of tea scents.

Warm jasmine petals, green twigs, cedarwood shavings… I close my eyes and inhale again. The top notes are crisp and bright, reminiscent of fresh leaves, but underneath I notice a musky sweetness. This complex scent is so heady and rich that I imagine it in a perfume bottle, but instead it blossoms in my cup of jasmine pearls tea. Please read the rest by clicking here.

Do you have favorite tea fragrances or perfumes with tea notes?

I keep misreading Bottega Veneta Eau Légère as Eau de Lingerie. Perhaps not such a strange mistake considering that it’s a silk slip of a perfume.  Sheer and delicate, it wears close to the skin, and just like a beautifully crafted lingerie, it makes me feel sexy and alluring. Designed as a variation (read, flanker) on the brand’s debut perfume, Bottega Veneta Eau de Parfum, Bottega Veneta Eau Légère has a similarly elegant character.

Elegance is something I fully expected from Bottega Veneta, but I didn’t anticipate anything interesting from its flankers. Brands rarely spend enough effort to develop original ideas, and since the rewards for flanker launches are small, perfumers often have few incentives to try very hard. Bottega Veneta Eau Légère is neither avant-garde nor trendsetting, but it’s made well enough that it stands on equal ground as the beautiful original. It only depends whether you prefer rich and glamorous or gauzy and sophisticated.

Continue reading →

Frédéric Malle partnered with the Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten to present its new fragrance, Dries Van Noten par Frédéric Malle.  The WWD reports that it will be the first in a series of fragrance portraits from Editions de Parfums. “It’s not a duet between the perfumer and myself [as in the previous Editions de Parfums fragrances], it’s literally a ménage à trois,” explained Malle. Antwerp based Dries Van Noten is renowned for his eclectic, layered designs that emphasize colors, textures and prints.

Created by IFF perfumer Bruno Jovanovic, Dries Van Noten par Frédéric Malle is a woody oriental with notes of lemon, sandalwood, jasmine, musks, saffron, and vanilla. It’s described as rich and creamy.

Dries Van Noten par Frédéric Malle is launching on February 15th worldwide and in the US, in April. 50ml/$185 and 100ml/$265. Via  WWD