la petite robe noire by Guerlain

This is the story of the meeting between two legends, perfume and fashion, between Guerlain and the iconic little black dress. It's the story of a new fragrance and a tribute to an element of clothing that has held a special place in women's wardrobes for decades. A pure exercise in style, La Petite Robe Noire by Guerlain is both timeless and audaciously innovative, revealing an enchantingly fresh composition. This fruity-floral fragrance subtly melds the tart energy of Sicilian lemon with tender almond notes, elegantly segueing into roses and powerful licorice. The juice adds character with a few pinches of smoky tea and patchouli leaves, lingering on with a caress of musk and vanilla.Interesting news. When upon learning initially about the launch of La Petite Robe Noire by Guerlain (The Little Black Dress; see our review), I immediately made a connection with Didier Ludot's boutique franchise as well as his own eponymous perfume dedicated to the universe of the LBD, but which did not bear its name...

The new Shalimar by Guerlain commercial with Natalia Vodianova

The new Shalimar by Guerlain commercial with Natalia Vodianova

A few days ago we introduced the new face of Shalimar by parfums Guerlain, Natalia Vodianova, shot by Italian photographer Paolo Roversi. The ad prints that will appear in major fashion and beauty magazines only give a hint of the upcoming advertising campaign, apparently.
Perfume Shrine is proud to be the first to feature the newest commercial of Shalimar, with Natalia Vodianova, today, kindly supplied by one of our readers who wishes to remain anonymous.
Our newest info suggests that Natalia Vodianova will also be fronting Guerlain's makeup and skincare starting January 2009.
The TV and cinema commercial of Shalimar is full of sensual images of a naked Vodianova, wriggling on an unmade bed, the voiceover recalling the famous Marilyn quip about wearing a few drops of Chanel No.5 in bed, but also visually echoing the controversial campaign of Calvin Klein'snewest feminine scent Secret Obsession in which an object(the fragrance) becomes a psychological relation to emotional response. It is almost as if the emotion is transfered onto the object befitting Freudian analysis.

The concept seems to be focused on a conversion between lovers following a passionate tryst, with the man asking the mystery ingredient that accounts for what sounds like an unforgetable memory.
"Qu'est-ce que tu portais sur ta peau?" (what were you wearing on your skin?)
"Quelques gouttes de Shalimar!" (A few drops of Shalimar)

Then again, the immortal dialogue* from Godart's Le Mépris with Brigitte Bardot, reprised in Chanel's latest lipstick commercial* for Rouge Allure, is rather unsurpasable...

Nez a Nez - Parfums

QUALITY ORIGINALITY

These words define precisely the positioning of the brand. 
There can't be intellectualism nor mannerism in the apprehension of a fragrance. The olfactive sense is based on primitive feelings. 
A game of odours of which the master word is Touching : Getting to the essential as the paintings of the impressionists. 
The representation of the researched emotion gets through this great voluntary “touches” of colours and “impressions”. 
The fragrances are naturally smart, their originality, never eccentric, comes from this notion. 
No possible reference with the perfumes of the traditional market. 
A great majority of natural components are carefully chosen so as to guarantee the numerous interpretations that can be done for these 
so richly elaborated fragrances. The natural components allow to plunge completely into the heart of the perfumes which propose so 
subtle and multiple evolutions.

PHILOSOPHY

Perfumes are characterized by debates of colors, research pushed into the field of various feelings which are proposed in the olfactory 
world by Stephane Humbert Lucas. The perfumes were imagined pictorially. 
Christa Patout and Stéphane Humbert Lucas lean on drawing plans and figurative legends, such as a scenario writer who is based on 
theses "beginnings" in order to apprehend a story in its most beautiful proportions. 
The types and the symbolism are thus proposed without never forcing the interpretations which stay personal for everyone. 
The perfumes are, to some extent, real actors. The are defined by colors, characterologies, languages too. 
They talk, they express themselves humanly without imposing a body. 
- The peps of the green, the richness of the yellow, the tragedy of the red, the ambiguity of the purple -
Drawing, drafts, and photographs take colors; the various works on the fragrances and the colours are bound and progress as a relay. 
The "eaux de parfum" in construction, always offering new aspects to the pictures, are measured according to the visual they bring.Last time I reviewed 5 of La Nez's scents, this time I will review the other 5 in the pack:

Fôret de Bécharré:

Starts off smelling rather, well, elderly. It's very soft, still sweet, but has some amber in there. I get some very vague citrus note, but it seems that there is a lot in there than kind of cancels each other out like an acid and a base. It's nice, but I wouldn't go out my way to get it.

Rosier Ardent:

I wanted to write "well now we're takling!", since there is a great initial blast of cumin, cardamom and cedar in this one. Sadly, that fades and it goes all cinnamon sweetness, like something that you'd hang from your car's rearview mirror for the holidays. Damn.

Atelier D’Artiste:

Starts off with a really nice vetiver/tobacco thing, then goes suddenly, horrifyingly sweet, with something that smells to me like menthol. Like the scene in "The Shining" when Jack finds the woman in room 227. Run!!!

Actually, this one dries down to the best of the bunch, just not good enough to go through getting it from France.

Marron Chic:

Another one that lists about 24 different notes in it, none of which I can discern. What I get is the smell of Tempera paints. It however is heavenly compared to:

Bouche Baie:

Starts off with a blast of sweetness that goes beyond cotton-candy into, I don't know what- an industrial sweetness that men in lab coats would add using an eye-dropper (and dressed in hazmat suits) to large vats that eventually be made into children's cereal. After a few minutes, it drops down to merely diabetic coma.

Tom Ford- Private Blend

Interesting and more interesting. I had a nice conversation with Alessandro, the proprietor of All Purpose (the store in LA that stocks some CB I Hate Perfume), and we both commented that blog reactions have made us have to get over our initial (in my case somewhat snobby) reaction to Tom. I find him somewhat louche and when I read about these I kind of rolled my eyes. Even more so when I read the piece in The New York Times skewering his Madison Avenue boutique. Reading some of the reviews I realized that I was coming in with my own prejudices against Tom Ford: not just because he's cuter and way more successful than I (and somehow steadfastly refuses to date me..), but because it seems unbearably.. showy I guess is the word to pop up with so many new releases. It gets an automatic "oh really?" from me.

Having written that I will try to keep an open mind. As open as it's rusty hinges will allow: since everyone else has covered these pretty exhaustively, I'll keep this short.

Velvet Gardenia

Intense gardenia, but not as intense as say, Fracas is intense in its tuberose. It's certainly not something that I would recommend wearing to a meeting with the boss, unless you two have a very interesting relationship. I can see where some people get the blue cheese bit- it skates that edge of decay that gardenias do in real life. I like this, but it cries out to be dialed up- Tom cranks the dial to 7, and I wish he had dialed it to 11. But god love him for even going up that far on the dial in this world over-run by fruity floral.

Black Violet

Candied violets (which Fran Lebowitz wrote of as "the Necco Wafers of the overbred"), woods and a plummy sweetness. I don't get much that's "black" here, and at just the point I start to get actual violets, it gets a case of the vapors and heads off to its boudoir.

Tuscan Leather

Really, they could call this one Eau de Coach Store. Just the smell of a new Coach bag, that slightly berry-sweet leather smell. It becomes harsher further on (which I think is a good thing), losing some of the sweetness and becoming more biker jacket than clutch.

Moss Breches

Earthy green Old-School Chypre with an unexpected bit of sweetness and... mint? Easily my hands-down favorite. Would I buy? Perhaps not.

Bois Rouge

Rather cologney citrus opening that frankly doesn't go very far on me until the drydown, with its woody leathery goodness. Perhaps the biggest "meh" of the group.

Purple Patchouli

For me opens with a brief blast that reminds me of Chypre Rouge, which drops immediately and becomes a weird combination of soap and...crystal meth? (don't ask) Becomes more and more "purple" in the drydown, in a "purple prose" kind of way- there is patchouli in there but it's buried under that tickle-the-back-of-the-throat iodiney note that reminds me club days before I woke up and decided to be an adult. Great cover for some of the girls at Hyde "No officer, it's Tom Ford"

Japon Noir

Seems as light as Florida Water after some of the others: light leathered amber. Keeps doing a sort of Lutens thing, somewhat like smelling the ghost of Fumerie Turque on a sweater you wore last week.

Noir de Noir

Sweet saffron and gentle roses. Not showy but quite luscious. Like Colombina, I can see where this will become the best seller of the line. I can't say it's my favorite, but it's the most approachable.

Amber Absolute

Delightfully smoky amber: incense, woods and rich amber goodness. If Moss Britches weren't here with its wonderful weirdness, this would be my favorite. It has fairly intense sillage, so another one that's not for the office, unless you work in the Playboy mansion.

Oud Wood

Marvelous sly oud and vetiver. Like Colombina I get leather in there- that new purse smell. It has a lovely woody amber drydown. Certainly the most "unisex" leaning toward masculine smelling one for me. Kelley, I think this Oud is for you..

Tobacco Vanille

Not nearly enough tobacco or for that matter vanille. I get March's Play-Doh, candy, and something that smells like the scent from that Christmas Tree shaped air-freshener you get at the car wash over the holidays. No thanks.

Neroli Portofino

4711 on steroids. Check, please!

Okay, I went through all of these in a period of two weeks and I have to write that I don't quite know what to think. On the one hand, I have to applaud both the achievement and the chutzpah: putting out three or four scents at once must be a daunting thing to attempt, but 12? I also kind of wonder if there is a reason that I kind of found most of these a bit wanting: it seems that Tom wants to be out there, testing the limits, but also wants to keep a stylish, loafer clad set of tootsies firmly in a realm where everyday shoppers will feel comfortable. Of course, kudos to him for doing anything that would try to reintroduce glamor back into the perfume world (and some of these are pretty glam). I just kind of wish that he could have cranked up the volume a bit. Jump in Tom honey, the water's fine.

Tom Ford-Black Orchid

Black Orchid is the debut fragrance release from designer Tom Ford, whose eponymous beauty line under the Estee Lauder brand has been awaited with anticipation since it was announced last year. It is an "oriental chypre" and the notes include black truffle, ylang ylang, bergamot, effervescent citrus, black currant, jasmine, Tom Ford black orchid, "spicy floral and fruit accords", lotus wood, patchouli, incense, vetiver, vanilla, balsam and sandalwood.

Black Orchid starts right off with a bang — it is a statement fragrance, make no mistake about it. There is citrus, there is lots of sugar, there are heady floral notes, there is jammy fruit. Tempering all of that is a strong undertone of something earthy and dark (the black truffle accord, presumably) and vaguely off-kilter, in a good way.

As it dries down, the earthy-dark stuff fades, the vanilla steps up and the florals turn creamy and smooth. It manages to simultaneously remind me of ice cream (it is sweet and creamy and rich) without being exactly foody (there are way too many heady floral notes here to think about eating). Later still, the creamy vanilla part calms a bit, the woods warm up and some of the earthiness shines through again.

Black Orchid immediately called to mind Viktor & Rolf's Flowerbomb, but not because they smell the same; they share little other than a persistent sweetness. But when Flowerbomb was released last year, it struck me as a surprisingly conventional fragrance from two designers who were known for their unconventional approach to fashion. One year and 400 insipid fragrances later, it doesn't smell quite so conventional to me. It is still far sweeter than I like personally, and I still wouldn't go so far as to call it groundbreaking or wildly risky, but it has way more personality than I initially gave it credit for.

My feelings about Black Orchid are similar. If you were looking for Tom Ford to go way out on a limb, you may end up disappointed: this isn'tM7. Like Flowerbomb, Black Orchid is sweeter than I like personally, and I wish the fun stuff in the top notes had some counterpart in the base — a little bit of something off-kilter at the end would have been a nice touch. But it is very well done, has personality to spare, and evokes a kind of grownup glamour that is very appealing after this year's onslaught of lackluster fruity florals geared towards the under-20 set. If there was a more impressive mainstream release this year, I can't think of what it was.

The packaging is just fabulous, and even better in person than in pictures: a retro-glam fluted black glass bottle with an engraved metal plate, very femme fatale, and sure to push you over the edge if you're waffling over whether to buy or not. The bottle for the Parfum is even better: a limited edition (signed and numbered, 5000 bottles) by Lalique, but for that you'll have to save your pennies.

The Tom Ford Black Orchid range currently includes 50 ($90) and 100 ml ($135) bottles of Eau de Parfum and a 15 ml ($600) bottle of Parfum. Coming soon: Luminous Hair Perfume, Hydrating Emulsion, Body Cleansing Oil and Finishing Oil Spray, along with a 30 ml Eau de Parfum.

Black Orchid is available at neimanmarcus. If you don't love it, no worries, Tom Ford has more plans for 2007: Tom Ford Private Blend (a collection of 12 unisex mix 'n match fragrances for "fragrance connoisseurs", rumored to have connoisseur-worthy price tags) and a men's fragrance, and then a color cosmetics line to debut in the fall. A second women's fragrance will follow in 2008.

Wode by Boudicca

In the works for years now, Boudicca's WODE has been launched. The Art Fragrance from Boudicca explores the myth around Queen Boadicea. Legend had it that she and her tribe wore a cobalt blue war 'paint' on their skin to frighten off their enemies. When the Romans defeated Queen Boadicea, she killed herself by swallowing hemlock, an extract of which is included in WODE. When WODE is sprayed a vibrant cobalt blue mist appears and settles on the skin or clothing and then disappears. Through rare elements like black hemlock extract and the smell of raw opium, with tuberose absolute, tonka bean, treemoss and animalistic notes like synthetic castoreum and cistus ladanum you get the lingering impression of warm and radiant flesh. Wode is packaged in a classic spray paint can. Graffiti is the modern war paint, the most public of all art forms, wrapped around the can is an engraved steel label tied with black braided ribbon tipped in metal; a detail synonymous with BOUDICCA team's highly refined finishing details on their garments. The Collaborators: The nose : Geza Schoen of Escentric Molecules The oils : International Flavors & Fragrances.(IFF) Fragrance consultant : Susan Aurora Irvine “IFF first met Brian when he won the IFF/RCA Project in 1994. We have followed Boudicca in the years since with admiration not only for their incredible talent, but also for their integrity and uncompromising work ethic. We are delighted to be part of Boudicca's first fragrance venture which is, as one would expect, exciting, challenging and glorious!" Catherine Mitchell IFF “Wode has been a magnificent journey for us. We have not only learnt so much about the science and technology around creating an idea to its conclusions, but to have had the education of olfactory with beauty and meaning from both Geza Schoen and Susan Aurora Irvine has been 

amazingly inspiring.”

Karl lagerfeld Kaspule

Celebrated fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld’s first collaboration with Coty take the form of a trio of capsule fragrances, collectively called Kapsule, which debuts this fall. Lagerfeld was inspired by the concept of mix-and-match capsule wardrobe, the same way one matches different pieces of apparel. This means that the fragrances have been deliberately designed to be unisex as Lagerfeld was quoted in an interview with Women's Wear Daily that “there is no gender in perfumes anymore”. Lagerfeld was hands-on in every step of Kapsule’s developmental process, working with Symrise perfumers Max Buxton and Emilie Coppermann, and Firmenich’s Olivier Cresp, to develop Kapsule Light, Kapsule Floriental, and Kapsule Woody respectively. Kapsule Light features notes of bitter orange, jasmine, nutmeg, clove and musk while Floriental has notes of ivy leaf, violet and black tea leaf. Finally, Woody is made up of cedar, moss and plum notes. Lagerfeld even conceptualized and took his own photographs for the advertising visual. The fragrances will come in 30 and 75 ml eau de toilette in flacons designed by Luz Herrmann, and made to resemble slipcases with books. Each fragrance bears Lagerfeld’s signature at the bottom of each bottle. The scents are slated to launch, for the first time, at Colette and Parfumeries Maionnaud in France at the end of October.