1980s perfumes: 12 posts

The beginning of my interest in fragrance coincided more or less with a momentous year in perfumery:  1981.  It was in that first year of what would later be called the Big Eighties that a Beverly Hills boutique released an eponymous scent housed in a box with yellow stripes that evoked the store’s awning. Giorgio was an immediate and a ubiquitous smash, a powerhouse floral so outsized that restaurants were said to refuse seating to Giorgio-wearing patrons.

Giorgio was only the beginning of what would prove to be the last era of “big” perfumes.  By the time super-scents Calvin Klein Obsession and Dior Poison were released in 1985, women were already wafting KL and Vanderbilt (1982), Ungaro Diva and Yves Saint Laurent Paris (1983), Chanel Coco, Paloma Picasso Mon Parfum, and Forever Krystle (1984).

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by Suzanna

In the early 1980s, the late Annick Goutal created two fragrances for her young daughters, Camille and Charlotte.  Ivy and honeysuckle inspired Camille’s scent (Eau de Camille, 1983) while Charlotte’s scent (Eau de Charlotte, 1982) described a young girl smitten by blackcurrant jam and cocoa. Despite the foodie nomenclature of the notes, Eau de Charlotte is not a gourmand scent. The blackcurrant and cocoa notes belie Charlotte’s true nature as a lily of the valley scent.

I discovered Charlotte, or she me, on a scent strip in a magazine. It smelled so different—this was the mid-nineties—to anything else I’d smelled until that time.  I was a Jean Patou Joy wearer, and Eau de Charlotte seemed less mainstream and more creative. I wore it through a couple of bottles before finding Gardenia Passion from the same Goutal line (by way of the incredible soap, but that’s another story!)

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For Dionne, Anne Klein II (1986) was an integral part of her journey into perfume and also of growing into her skin. As we shared emails about the fragrance and as I read her moving story, I learned that Dionne loved incense and woods. She said, “I discovered that even though many florals go sour on my skin, incense and iris and woodsy notes smelled wonderful.” It was then clear why Anne Klein II with its sumptuous blend of patchouli, sandalwood and dark smoky notes would fit Dionne’s perfume personality. Although it was a bit intimidating to find anything approximating such a special and meaningful fragrance, I decided to plunge right into it.

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As I browse through new cookbook releases, I notice that rose is the flavor of the moment, appearing in everything from drinks to desserts. Pastries that would traditionally be perfumed with vanilla, chocolate or coffee are now presented in rose and violet incarnations. While reading a recipe for a rose scented cream puff in the delectable new book Ladurée Sucré, I realized that more so than sweets, I wanted another rose perfume. I craved something pink and unapologetically girly. My search led me to Annick Goutal Rose Absolue and Rose Splendide, two rose fragrances that do not shy away from being pretty and romantic.

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I have to thank my reader Jill for helping me discover the vintage perfume gem that is Nicky Verfaillie Grain de Sable. Jill contacted me to add a couple of fragrances to the Long Lost Favorite Perfume series I started to run on Fridays, and Grain de Sable was one of them.  “I had never smelled anything like it then, and I still pine for it,” explained Jill.  As it turns out, she keeps company with Luca Turin in her love for Grain de Sable. Luca called it an “obscure masterpiece” in his NZZ Folio article, and it was to him that I turned for help.

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