1.)
Raising a Stink in the Perfume Business, Salvatore Ferragamo perfume division CEO says celebrity fragrances are a joke — “’It’s short term business. One product, huge investment and huge media, and then it disappears. It’s just volume, that’s it. It is a joke … It is for low target people. We are completely different, our brand we have a history to tell,’ he said.”

The Ferragamo brand — founded in 1928 by Italian shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo — went public last year with a company valuation of $3.4 billion, which is considerably less than the valuation of the Prada company when it went public the same year, but right around the same valuation of the Michael Kors company — so apparently, not a valuation to scoff at.

And just like Michael Kors and Prada, Ferragamo is a global luxury brand, expanding into all available territories and offering pretty much every bit of sparkly, logo-covered fashion flotsam and jetsam known to mankind: scarves, watches, shoes, handbags, jewelry, sunglasses, keychains, clothing and perfume (I’m sure I missed a couple of major categories, but you get the point).

The launch of Ferragamo’s jewelry line last year in Milan

But with serious sales of celebrity perfumes in the US, the UK and Australia, brands like Ferragamo feel the pinch when consumers throw their money at the likes of Justin Bieber and Paris Hilton, instead of at them (celebrity perfumes aren’t as popular in other high-spending regions like the Middle East, South America, Asia and Europe).

*NOTE 1: Sales of celebrity perfumes in the US increased by 57% in 2011, with Justin Bieber’s “Someday” perfume leading the pack. Bieber’s fragrance was so popular that it outsold Chanel’s bestsellers No. 5 and Coco Mademoiselle, and Bieber will receive the Fragrance Foundation’s Elizabeth Taylor Fragrance Celebrity award this year in recognition of this rather stunning commercial success.

So yeah, if I were the Ferragamo perfumes division CEO, I’d be snorting derisively at celebrity perfumes, too — if only out of complete and utter frustration that teenage girls aren’t lining up around the block to buy *my* perfumes.

Beyonce draws a crowd for her perfume release at Macy’s

It probably doesn’t help that luxury sales throughout Europe are starting to flounder in response to economic and political turmoil: “The biggest rally in three years for luxury-goods makers in Europe is fizzling on concern slower economic growth in China and renewed euro-area political turmoil after Greece’s inconclusive election will choke off demand . . . China’s cooling growth, the political impasse since Greece’s May 6 election and proposed tax increases from France’s new president are hurting the industry.”

One can only assume that “The sales rally is fizzling!” is not a phrase a perfumes division CEO ever wants to hear, especially when you’re doing your best to peddle the exact same product that sells so well for Chanel and Dior and Jennifer Lopez and Paris Hilton and . . .

Because nothings says “high target customer” like a pink bow on a bottle of juice that smells like a Shirley Temple, right?

*NOTE 2: In 2011 (and despite seeing a 26% growth in revenue over 2010), the Ferragamo fragrance division contributed only 5.9% to the company’s overall revenue chart. So this public lash-out against celebrity perfumes that we’re hearing from Mr. Bertinelli? It’s the strangled cry of a CEO under the microscope. In other words, ““We’d have sold buckets more perfume if it weren’t for those pesky pop-stars!”

It’s always someone else’s fault.

*OTHER PERFUME NEWS:

A.) Madonna is sued by an Australian artist over claims that the logo on her new perfume bottle looks too much like the logo he designed and trademarked for his own merchandise: Sydney artist sues Madonna over perfume logo

B.) Brad Pitt is signed by Chanel to be their new No. 5 spokesmodel, the first time the brand has hired a man to front for Chanel No. 5.

The move has gained them massive attention in newspapers, on blogs and across social media channels, which, obviously and of course, was the *entire* point — free advertising!

Says marketing professor Mandeep Malik: “As these new (perfume releases) come into the market place, they chip away at the stranglehold of the share that brands like Chanel No. 5 had for decades … So this is a very smart move. With the worldwide buzz and chatter, the Brad Pitt sign up has already paid off. The brand impressions they will get long after they release the first ad, which people will critique as well, will be worth millions of dollars. And without (having to pay for) Angelina Jolie, they’re sort of bringing her shadow onto the brand, as well.”

“A nation’s heart flutters . . . “

Personally, I was kind of hoping the “Brad Pitt for Chanel” news meant that Chanel was finally debuting a Chanel No. 5 for Men — if only because that particular announcement would likely ignite a raging firestorm across all the perfume blogs.

And blog-related firestorms are always entertaining.

C.) The UAE forms a regulatory body to oversee the production of perfumes and scented products: “The specifications that will be announced for fragrances will be based on highest level of international standards. We have a lot of products, particularly the traditional Arabic perfumes produced locally, which need to be controlled. We want to free the market of fake and counterfeit perfumes and make sure highest quality products are sold according to their original value.”

You know how Champagne, Bordeaux, Scotch, Cognac and Armagnac are protected names, regulated so that no one else can dilute the value of the product from these regional locations by slapping a Champagne or Scotch label on any old bottle of crap — I wonder if this new regulatory body is how the Middle East intends to protect the global reputation of its ouds and attars?

*Speaking of the Middle East and perfumes: Only Saudi saleswomen will be allowed to work at perfume and cosmetic shops: “Only women will staff cosmetics and perfume shops from June 30th, local Arabic daily Al-Madinah reported yesterday quoting a senior official of the Labor Ministry . . . Muhammad Al-Ghamdi, in charge of employment in a chain of famous cosmetics and perfume shops, expected the decision to increase sales. ‘Women understand each other, and a saleswoman will know better what a woman customer may be looking for,’ he said.”

The ParArmenian reports that “The latest decision follows a government ruling implemented in January this year that prevents men from working at lingerie shops in the Kingdom. More than 28,000 Saudi women came forward to work at shops selling women’s essentials, Al-Tukhaifi told Arab News at that time. He said that women would replace salesmen in 7,353 stores across the Kingdom.”

D.) As long as we’re talking about particular geographic regions: Fun Factoids — there are now 9,000 acres of rose bushes planted in Bulgaria that produce 1.5 tons of Bulgarian rose oil annually, 98-99% of which is exported to other countries for the production of perfumes, cosmetics, skincare products, flavorings and medicines.

Harvesting roses in Bulgaria

2.)
OTHER INDUSTRY QUICK HITS:

A.) The Humphrey Bogart estate is suing Burberry for using an iconic Casablanca movie image featuring the famous actor as part of a Facebook promotion for its line of trench coats: “Bogart’s licensor is asserting that use of the image of the famous actor is a violation of both trademark and publicity rights, enjoyed by the estates of many celebrities even after they pass away — depending on where they were lived at the time of death. Burberry, however, says its use of Bogart’s image isn’t commercial, and that it isn’t directly connecting the photograph to the sale of any merchandise, ‘but rather was a historical positioning of the image within an educational project along with numerous other photographs of people wearing Burberry apparel over the last century.’”

Which is a dishonest response from Burberry because of course they’re using the Bogart Casablanca image to promote their brand and products, otherwise, what’s the point of licensing the image? By associating their brand with an iconic Hollywood actor and classic Hollywood glamor, they’re certainly not promoting repeated viewings of Casablanca.

It’s not just any old trench coat — it’s a Humphrey Bogart trench coat!

B.) Amazon doesn’t want to just dominate book, video and electronics sales, they’re now aiming for high-fashion — and retailers are nervous: “‘It’s Day 1 in the category,’ Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, said in a recent interview. Though characteristically tight-lipped on bottom-line details, Mr. Bezos said the company was making a “significant” investment in fashion to convince top brands that it wanted to work with them, not against them. The traditional retail world — and many major brands that want no part of Amazon — are gearing up to fight for their lives.”

Amazon even sponsored the latest Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual Costume Institute Gala, underwriting expenses and live-streaming the event on its website: “In the last year, Amazon has taken on former Barneys New York fashion director Julie Gilhart as a fashion consultant and signed on hundreds of contemporary and high-end brands including Michael Kors, Vivienne Westwood and Catherine Malandrino. This among other initiatives to move Amazon into the online fashion space, including the launch of flash sales site MyHabit in 20011, the purchase of Zappos.com, a shoe site acquired in 2009, and full priced womens fashion site ShopBop.com, acquired in 2006.”

What’s going to happen to all that brick-and-mortar retail space in every city across the world when the majority of consumers switch to shopping online, instead? I imagine there’s plenty of prime mall space (with lots of parking — and indoor food courts!) that could make attractive condo-apartment complexes, if given a proper makeover.

Plus, fountains and escalators for the win!

C.) The Magic Touch: Chanel’s nail polish sales have grown in the United States by 84% in the last four years. Peter Philips, Chanel’s creative director for makeup, gets all the credit.

“In the long term, that’s paid off really well”

D.) Sweden’s Nudie Jeans brand puts its money where its mouth is and switches to all-organic cotton for its upcoming Fall production line: “With help from five different denim suppliers, three of them in Turkey, and two jeans producers, Nudie’s fall denim line will be made entirely from 100% organic cotton, the culmination of a process that began six years ago and had seen the organic percentage within the line top 60% for spring . . . ‘Sustainability doesn’t stop at fiber content,’ said Palle Stenberg, cofounder and chief executive officer of the Göteborg, Sweden-based firm. ‘We’re using nontoxic indigo dye, producing labels with 100% organic paper, even using rivets and zippers from raw ungalvanized copper. This is not only more environmentally friendly, but the ungalvanized trims age beautifully, and the denim does, too.’”

The brand recognizes that this will make their production costs increase, but they say they’re committed to a more environmentally sustainable process and stated that they won’t be passing the extra costs on to consumers through price hikes.

Which is amazing when you think about it, because luxury brands like Louis Vuitton are talking about hiking prices throughout Europe and the US, not because they’ve improved the quality of their products, but just because they’re pissed that Chinese citizens are purchasing most of their designer goods while traveling outside of China rather than buying from the brand boutiques within China.

See: LVMH Ignores European Austerity, Raising Prices for Chinese Travelers

Score: 1 for Nudie / 0 for LVMH

1.)
The majority of the time, there are clear patterns that I can sense when combing through fashion, luxury and retail news (and if not clear patterns, then at least some entertaining sideshow events), but this week has been particularly challenging because the only pattern that seems to be emerging is that the global consumer economy is speeding straight toward another 2008-sized brick wall . . . and that’s almost too depressing to write about.

So I’ll offer up some links to articles I’m finding pertinent and let you make up your own mind about where you think the retail scene is headed.

A.) US April retail sales worst since 2009 — “Major retailers such as Costco and Macy’s reported on Thursday that April revenue rose less that 1 percent in the worst performance since 2009 when the US economy was just coming out of a bad recession . . . The latest results are impacted by a flurry of negative economic news. Government reports on jobs and housing in recent weeks have renewed concerns that the economic recovery is facing a spring slowdown for the third straight year. And the stock market rally also has lost some steam amid worries about the European financial crisis and the economy at home.”

Plus: US Labor Force Participation Rate Lowest Since 1981

Bill Gross, the head of the world’s largest investment fund, says that unemployment in the United States has changed from a cyclical problem into an ongoing structural problem that can’t be solved through continued tweaking of fiscal and monetary policies alone.

He suggests that the problem is the changing structure of 21st century life — that US employers need particular, advanced skill sets that are adaptive to the rapidly changing and technological landscape, but a sizable chunk of the population doesn’t have these skills and so remains unemployable except for the most menial of tasks.

It’s also a concern that as technology allows workplaces to become more and more efficient, less and less actual workers are needed. The younger citizens of Italy are already feeling this pain — the Telegraph UK reports that thousands of under-35 year old, college-educated Italians are taking jobs as sheep herders and farmers because there’s no other work available and they want/need to do something. See: Young Italians flock to become shepherds.

*Rose Colored Glasses Point #1 — the article points out that these young Italians are raising the standards of the sheepherding profession, competing to improve animal husbandry techniques in order to produce higher quality wool, cheese and meat that they can sell for a better price.

Which leaves me to wonder if this is the kind of thing we’re going to see happen across the developed world; that as retail production and service sector opportunities dry up, there will be a mass switch to much more hands-on and labor intensive food production which won’t necessarily replace commercial farming as much as offer a choice between factory farmed agriculture/animal husbandry and the more locally sourced, slow-food approach.

*Rose Colored Glasses Point #2 — As this happens in food production, we’ll likely see a parallel movement in the way household goods, clothing, skin care and more are produced. Kind of like a great big societal Etsy, but with new improvements and innovations as individuals and collectives compete for attention and income, but on a much smaller scale than before. See: The New Artisans

On the more pessimistic side, investor Jim Rogers believes we’ll witness violent social upheaval throughout Europe and the US as economic conditions worsen and unemployment rises, so any kind of large-scale workforce transition away from offices and large-scale production factories, while perhaps a welcome change from a purely consumptive model, certainly won’t be painless:

“You should look out the window”

1B.)
Other global economic factors to consider:

B.) German Manufacturing Shrinks — “Germany’s manufacturing sector shrank at the fastest pace in nearly three years in April, as export orders plunged, raising questions over whether Europe’s biggest economy can continue to drive growth in the euro zone.”

C.) China Economy Sends Mixed Signals — “Manufacturing surveys released this week provided mixed signals over the state of China’s economy. A survey released Wednesday showed manufacturing contracted in April for the sixth straight month, though the rate of deterioration had slowed . . . Companies also reduced jobs, at the sharpest rate in 37 months, HSBC said . . . higher costs for fuel and raw materials, labor and transport contributed to worsening conditions.”

D.) Brazil Industry Slumps Again, Stimulus Likely — “Brazil’s manufacturing sector declined unexpectedly in March, raising the likelihood of more stimulus measures and interest rate cuts as policymakers struggle to keep the nation’s fragile economic recovery on track . . . Local industries blame poor infrastructure, high taxes and labor costs, and a strong local currency for the recent slump, which saw industrial production expand a meager 0.3 percent in 2011.”

E.) Is Indian economy about to catch the Brazilian disease? — “Over the last two years, we all know that the zing has gone out of the India story — with growth decelerating to below 7%, inflation staying stubbornly around that level, and policy paralysis worsening the situation . . . It was easy for India to increase spending in the midst of a global boom, but the spending has continued to rise in the post-crisis period. If this continues, India may meet the same fate as Brazil in the late 1970s, when excessive government spending set off hyperinflation and crowded out private investment, ending the country’s economic boom.”

F.) More UK Retailers Likely To Seek Bankruptcy Protection — “The (rising bankruptcy) forecasts come as UK retailers grapple with a perfect storm of consumer constraint caused by a double-dip recession, high unemployment and limited consumer credit, exacerbated by high inflation and commodity prices . . . the number of high-street retailers seeking the services of a (bankruptcy) administrator between the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012 almost tripled. More broadly, (bankruptcies) in the retail sector, including automotive and wholesale companies, jumped 70% over the same period.”

*Speaking of which: Hong-Kong based YGM Trading has agreed to purchase the European operations of the recently failed Aquascutum brand, a heritage British brand that’s been in business since 1851. YGM Trading already owns the Asian rights to the Aquascutum name.

2.)
And while most of the news is bad, not all is lost — Hermes reports a 21% surge in sales for the 1st quarter of 2012, mostly coming from sales in China and from Chinese tourists buying in Europe and the United States; however, Hermes CEO Patrick Thomas was cautious about the rest of 2012, stating that “It’s not so easy to give forecasts … We are worried that the end of the year will be a little more difficult but over the year, we will stick by what we have said, that is a sales increase of around 10 or 11 percent.”

Which has to be better than bankruptcy, wouldn’t you agree?

Hermes Fall 2012 — “a nomadic spin to travel and luxury”

And French luxury conglomerate PPR (which owns Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, YSL and Brioni, among others) announced a 15% overall increase in revenue for the 1st quarter of 2012. Breaking it down a little, they reported revenue growth of 33% at Bottega Veneta and 40% at Yves Saint Laurent, while stating that Gucci saw a 12% increase in sales.

*NOTE: Yeah, I noticed the switch-over from talk of revenue for YSL and Bottega Veneta to the word “sales” for Gucci, too, but apparently when a brand derives the majority (if not all) of its revenue from sales — a la Gucci — then this is not inappropriate.

If you’ll recall, YSL just recently let designer Stefano Pilati’s contract expire and replaced him with former Dior Homme designer Hedi Slimane, even though Pilati has apparently been doing a bang-up job for YSL, if the explosive revenue growth is accurate. The rumor machine is suggesting that Pilati will be heading to Giorgio Armani to take over the head design duties from 77 year old Armani, who is said to be ailing and near retirement.

3.)
*Other ‘Doing the Designer Shuffle’ News:

After only one year, Pringle of Scotland designer Alistair Carr has been let go. Pringle of Scotland will reportedly abandon a high-fashion track and focus its attention on knitwear alone, with smaller stores and less high-profile presentations. This upcoming June’s Spring 2013 menswear collection will be Carr’s final design gig for the brand.

Pringle of Scotland Fall 2012 — Carr’s last womenswear collection for the label

*NOTE: Pringle of Scotland is taking its latest play directly from the luxury business handbook, as high-end brands doing business in India have discovered that smaller stores and more focused collections are the best ways for them to maximize profits and keep costs down. See: Luxury retailers shrink outlets to maximize profits

And after only two seasons, Paco Rabanne has dismissed Bombay-born head designer Manish Arora. No replacement has yet been announced at Paco Rabanne, and Arora has his own label on which to concentrate his vibrant energies.

Paco Rabanne Fall 2012 — Manish Arora says goodbye

WWD expressed some small bit of surprise at the departure of Arora from the Paco Rabanne label as points of sale were increasing and Lady Gaga had given the brand some welcome media exposure by donning several of Arora’s designs at the 2011 MTV Europe Music Awards last November.

I do have to admit, however, that the designs Lady Gaga sported on stage don’t look particularly “wearable”, which is what what WWD reported that Paco Rabanne vice-president Vincent Thilloy said they were looking for in their partnership with Mr. Arora.

WWD (Women’s Wear Daily, the news arm of the fashion industry) recently published an article about the High-Low shopping habits of post-recession consumers, that while once reliably high-end fashion consumers still splurge on luxury items, they’re now shopping six times more often at discount retailers — and the retailers are starting to notice.

WWD quote: “A trip to Target might give a luxe shopper the license to make a stop at Gucci and Chanel and so on … It might not be logical, but it’s how shoppers operate . . . Even though struggling midtier chains such as Kohl’s or JC Penney will remain dependent on their bread-and-butter middle-class consumer, the research suggests lower-end retailers have a deeper relationship with a high-end shopper than even they might realize.”

The Baltimore Sun picks up that topical ball and runs with it, publishing an article that directly speaks to the new breed of price-conscious yet fashion-focused shoppers (see: Budget boutiques aim for high-fashion and low prices), and the Associated Press reported that last February’s NYFashion Week hosted mall brand runway shows and chain store VIP parties right alongside the usual luxury brand suspects.

But it’s not just dress shops and shoe boutiques that are feeling the high-low pinch.

Once exclusively luxe perfume boutiques like MiN New York are now sprinkling $50 and under items among their more generously priced offerings, with the Los Angeles based Scent Bar at the head of the class in its embrace of high-low, even going so far as to create an entirely separate website (Indie Scents) to showcase its expanding list of affordable niche fragrance options — a clever division of product along packaging and price point that allows the Scent Bar owners to prevent dilution of the “upscale all the time” vibe over at their original high-end fragrance site, Lucky Scent.

Scent Bar explains the “quiet but interesting” skin-scent trend for 2012

And since we’re already talking fashion and scent, let’s look at two of the Scent Bar brands that best encapsulate this new approach to high-low shopping in the same store: the fashion-insider, all-pro brand Escentric Molecules, and the eccentric, totally DIY Smell Bent.

Escentric Molecules is a chic, buzz-making brand backed by noted fashion writer/critic Tim Blanks and his branding-expert partner Jeff Lounds (of This Company) with the actual fragrances created by industry pro Geza Schoen.

Escentric Molecules Escentric 03 — a minimalist, stylish take on the classic vetiver

Tim Blanks is employed by Vogue, the empress of the fashion publication empire, so even without a multi-million dollar marketing blitz the Escentric Molecules brand was immediately embraced by high-profile fashion retailers such as Barney’s, Colette and Harvey Nichols while magazine spreads and internet articles name-dropped the likes of Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Amy Winehouse and Madonna as celebrity early adopters.

A satisfyingly so-hip-it-hurts vibe proceeded to wrap itself around the Escentric Molecules brand and it’s been on a roll ever since, with a total of six perfumes to its credit, plus a revamped special-edition Fifth Anniversary black bottle release of their popular Molecule 01 and Escentric 01 scent pair.

But that’s what an inside fashion-industry track and plenty of branding-expert investor funding can get you.

Because everything looks better in branding expert black

In brazen contrast, West Hollywood’s Brent Leonesio parachuted into the niche perfume scene after he lost his job as a store buyer when achingly trendy Los Angeles shoe shop Il Primo Passo closed its doors in 2009, a victim of 2008′s financial meltdown and the subsequent US economic contraction.

Leonesio stated that he’d become disenchanted with the fashion business after his slog in the shoe-buying trenches and wanted to try his hand at something new, so with an art major under his belt and a passion for perfume under his skin, he started his own niche perfume brand, Smell Bent, with the goal of bringing “niche perfume to individuals who might not have ever been exposed to a bottle (Frederic) Malle or (Serge) Lutens. Niche perfumery has a tendency towards the esoteric and I wanted to lift the veil a little.”

Focusing on affordability while still retaining a fanboi‘s love of creative perfumery, Smell Bent is a devoted fumehead’s grab-bag of tributes to the smells he loves best. At present, there are thirty-seven Smell Bent perfumes — from lemony fresh citrus and freshly sprouted greens to vanilla-infused incense and dark animalic musks, the brand covers enough ground to satisfy almost every taste, and its cheap-chic approach to packaging (toiletry bottles with plastic spray caps and colorful stick-on labels that Leonesio designs himself) keeps prices way down while nailing a geeky, Prozac-fueled appeal.

It’s about as far a cry from the Vogue-approved, supermodel-endorsed Escentric Molecules brand as a guy can get — and yet it works, precisely because Smell Bent communicates its message of fun and affordability in such clear, broad strokes.

Low has never looked so fun — photograph by Smell Bent

That the Scent Bar offers these two brands within the same space is pretty much the epitome of high-low retailing and a tribute to their ability to stay current and on-trend — and surprisingly, I like both brands. A lot.

What’s inside an Escentric Molecules bottle has often been compared to a pile of Emperor’s New Clothes due to its deliberate inscrutability, but perfumer Geza Schoen is one of the new breed of celebrity perfumers with something to say of his own, unleashed from the constraints of focus groups and stepping out from behind the anonymous veil of corporate marketing.

“What goes into the bottle can come as an after-thought,” Schoen stated in a 2009 interview with Marian Buckley at So Feminine. “The industry works so quickly — they create a scent, market it, make it into as many versions as possible and dilute the original idea completely. It’s like being a chicken in a box producing eggs.”

So he left the mainstream perfume industry and set out on his own, resulting in the Escentric Molecules brand, but also side projects like The Beautiful Mind and Kinski, intriguingly esoteric projects that showcase the creative potential of contemporary perfumery.

But where industry pros like Francis Kurkdjian and Geza Schoen may be the Haider Ackermann and Hedi Slimane of perfumery, Brent Leonesio’s Smell Bent is the fragrance world’s equivalent of Zara, contentedly knocking-off the big-boy concepts, simplifying, sweetening and then pushing them out at cut-rate prices that a budget-conscious consumer can love and embrace.

Embracing the budget with Smell Bent samples*

“Because fragrance has traditionally been a luxury item, what you see is these brands that are focused on high, high prestige, super high price points and a lot of high concept copy,” Brent Leonesio told WWD. “I wanted to make a fun line that wasn’t scary, that was accessible and wasn’t priced high so everybody could get it, but it would still have great ingredients.”

And at $45 a bottle, Smell Bent is good stuff — and not just “it’s good for the price” but genuine, thoughtfully blended stuff. It’s not sleek, chic and sophisticated like a Schoen, a Polge or a Kurkdjian, but it’s also not trying to be.

I’ve tested all of the twelve samples I ordered from Smell Bent, and every single one is easy to like and easy to wear. His Debonair Eau Dandy scent actually comes across like a simplified, fast-fashion interpretation of the Escentric Molecules Escentric 03, but where Escentric 03 is a tad stiff and formalized (though still terrific), Debonair Eau Dandy throws out the collar stays, loosens the tie and relaxes with its feet up on the table.

Kind of like a Wall Street Banker slumming it in a Brooklyn cafe, but a cafe with exposed brick walls, art glass light fixtures, fresh roasted single-origin coffee and classic blues on the sound-system — which means he’ll be more than happy to hang out for a good long while.

*NOTE: The Untitled #8 bottle in the Smell Bent sample photograph is Brent Leonesio’s entry in an exclusive series of Lucky Scent fragrances specially commissioned from independent perfumers. I didn’t know much about Leonesio or Smell Bent until trying Untitled #8 — I liked it so much that I decided to explore more of Leonesio’s work.

1.)
Roberto Cavalli Tweets His Way Into the Fashion Conversation:
“Before, likely during, and after calling American fashion “almost fashion” in an interview with D — La Repubblica last week, Roberto Cavalli has been busy micro-blogging, asking his Twitter followers whether they prefer their sex “in the day time or in the night” and what kind of men they like (“intelligent and ugly or… beautiful and stupid”) — both accompanied by the same picture of the designer leaning back on a bridge smoking a cigar . . . Over the weekend, the designer went on a bit of a rant, in 140-character-long bursts, about the current state of the industry and the sole American designer he likes, and he even threw another jab at his favorite punching bag, Anna Wintour. It all started on Saturday morning.”

And if you click the link at the headline, you can find out exactly what Roberto Cavalli decided to tweet to his now over 202,000 Twitter followers: criticism of the lack of creativity in the contemporary fashion industry; how Anna Wintour’s Editor-at-Vogue influence has pushed an “ugly” minimalism front and center while marginalizing other (perhaps more animal-print obsessed?) voices; that the French aesthetic is all but absent in French fashion anymore due to fashion’s increased globalization and monetization; that the only way to get coverage in major fashion magazines is buy a lot of advertising in those same magazines; and more.

Which are all valid points, and it’s not like no one’s ever voiced such criticisms before — for instance, see: Azzedine Alaia Believes Anna Wintour Is a Bad Dresser And Scares People Away.

And Tamara Mellon, founder and former head of the Jimmy Choo label, spoke out recently regarding her painful experience with equity fund partners and how their focus on short-term profit was destructive to the creative process at the heart of her brand — so destructive, in fact, that she eventually packed up and walked out: Tamara Mellon puts the boot in to buyouts

So it’s not what Cavalli is saying that’s so remarkable, but rather, it’s the savvy way he’s gone directly to the public via Twitter to plead his case, bypassing the usual editorial controls of major fashion magazines and corporate fashion websites.

*Bonus Point Interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica: “‘Just look at American fashion,’ (Cavalli) said, ‘which is almost fashion. It’s terrible and you almost can’t look at it . . . It has been driven by a great journalist, Anna Wintour, who wants all women to be like her and to dress the way she does.’”

His comments have spread like wildfire across the fashion blogs as a result, and he’s picked up an extra 2500 Twitter followers in just a few days, which, for a designer who sees himself as mostly elbowed off-stage from the main fashion conversation occurring within the pages of the major magazines, that’s not something to sniff at.

Roberto Cavalli Fall 2012 — Tiger-striping his way into your heart

I name-checked Rob Walker and his book ‘Buying In‘ in last week’s post, but I think it’s worth bringing him up again this week because he talks about exactly this — that brands are no longer just competing against other brands for the consumer’s attention, but they’re competing against all of pop-culture as a whole.

So to win eyeballs and influence friends, a designer (or producer or creator) has to insert him/herself into the pop-culture landscape. To essentially *become* pop-culture. To be what (or who) is talked about. Especially if the target market is the youth culture, and what could be more youth-culture oriented than fashion, with its ever changing trends and its rapid response to shifts in the zeitgeist?

Mr. Walker wrote about the ad campaign that put Unilever’s Axe deodorants and body sprays on the map: “Well, I asked, if a deodorant isn’t competing against deodorants, what is it competing against? ‘Pop Culture,’ (Mr.) Gelner replied. ‘You’re competing against things like movies, television shows, sporting events, other advertisers, the Internet.’ So to sell something like Axe, he concluded, ‘you have to become part of pop culture.”

It’s not just a deodorant — it’s pop culture

In other words, you have to be interesting (or outlandish) enough to become office and internet-forum gossip the next day (if not five minutes later).

So while Roberto Cavalli may sound a little crazy in his Twitter rants, maybe he’s actually crazy-smart. Because now fashion blogs are writing about him, and thousands of people on Twitter are signing up to follow whatever perfect little nugget he might utter next — which means that his future Milan Fashion Week collections will get attention from the young, ironic fashion posse and he’ll start selling more perfume, scarves and sunglasses.

All without ever spending a dime on an advertising spread in Vogue.

2.)
*Speaking of the intersection of pop-culture and fashion: Give Three-Piece A Chance: a Savile Row Flash Mob protests against plans for an Abercrombie & Fitch kids store to open on the hallowed ground of British bespoke tailoring.

*More pop-culture and mens stuff: Mansome — a new documentary satirizing the vanity and obsessive grooming habits of the 21st century male:

“Real men don’t tweet”

The luxury menswear industry is booming, growing at about 14% a year, or nearly double the pace of luxury women’s wear, according to consulting firm Bain & Co., with global brands like Coach and Louis Vuitton expanding their menswear offerings, and classic men’s fragrances making a cultural comeback, so I’d say the industry is over-ripe for satirization.

Hermes went so far as to even build a separate Madison Avenue storefront specifically for its male New York customers, and Coach’s recent surge in sales and profits is partly due to the opening of a men’s only store in Manhattan along with a broader expansion of their men’s goods in general.

To add frosting to the man-cake, London’s scheduling its first ever standalone men’s fashion week for the upcoming Spring 2013 shows. London menswear designers have previously been squeezed into the last day of London Fashion Week as most of the editors jet off to Milan to cover the Italian womenswear shows.

Even JC Penney is climbing aboard the male-spending train by hiring Nick Wooster — known as “the best dressed man in the most fashionable city in the country” — as their new Creative Director for menswear; apparently hoping to tap into that new mania for old-school style.

Nick Wooster has a queer eye for the modern guy

*NOTE: Wooster is a former men’s fashion director for Barney’s and Neiman Marcus, as well as a consultant for Gilt Groupe’s men’s department.

But while menswear is a bright spot for retailers in the US and Asia, recent reports show the overall retail market is in free fall in the Eurozone, with retail sales plunging in Italy, France and Germany: “The word of the day is plunge. Retail sales fell like a rock in Germany and fell at a record pace in France. Jobs and retail sales plunged at a record pace in Italy, and in general, did a nose-dive across the entire Eurozone.”

Retail sales also fell in the UK and Spain, but rose in Sweden, Japan and parts of Canada, with a just-below 1% overall gain in the United States.

The really, terribly, horribly, awfully bad Eurozone news, however, is kind of frightening: “Euro zone retail sales are falling at their strongest pace since the 2008 financial crisis to their second-lowest level ever, according to data released by financial researchers Markit . . . The euro zone’s two biggest economies, Germany and France, have been hit hard by weakening consumer spending.”

The recent French elections are also putting the fates of French luxury brands in jeopardy as steep hikes in income taxes are an expected result, no matter which party wins: French $17bn Luxury Goods Become Election Losers

But hey, Bottega Veneta now lets you monogram your new BV bags, so it’s all good.

Oh, wait: Betsey Johnson Files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy — almost all of the Betsey Johnson boutiques will be closed except for about five in major cities across the US, but the company will still offer online shopping and she’ll still do that reality TV show next year.

Betsey Johnson Fall 2012 — the bankruptcy of contemporary fashion

The Betsey Johnson company was already rescued by Steve Madden in 2010, which is kind of ick-inducing when you realize that Steve Madden served time in prison for stock manipulation, money laundering and securities fraud.

Not exactly a match made in heaven, but any port in a storm, right?

1.) The High Price of Celebrity Perfume:
“A New York judge Friday ordered pop star Prince to pay $3.95 million to a perfume maker for failing to promote the 3121 line of scents. Prince was sued by Revelations Perfume and Cosmetics in 2008 for failing to promote the perfume, which was supposedly inspired by his 2006 album, 3121. The company said it spent millions of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses in reliance upon Prince’s commitment to promote, and when the matter went before a special referee, the estimation of actual damage was accepted. Now, a New York Supreme Court judge has confirmed the award.”

Allegedly, Prince refused to allow his image to be used on the packaging, wouldn’t promote the perfume or give away samples at his concerts, and wouldn’t engage in any promotional tours, interviews or other activities . . . which makes me wonder why in the world he signed the contract for a celebrity perfume in the first place, since personally promoting a celebrity perfume is the only sure-fire way to get anyone interested enough to buy it.

I mean, Madonna is from the same pop-culture era as Prince and has been *all over* the place chatting-up her just released celebrity perfume, her face is in the print ads, her commercial was risqué and controversial and she’s already talking about developing a second perfume for men.

When “too racy” is just what the marketing department ordered

As a consequence, Madonna stands to earn millions from her celebrity perfume deals while strangely media-shy Prince has to pay out millions as a result of refusing to play the fame-game.

*RELATED: The ultimate fame game, however, might be the Apple Computer Macbook Pro perfume developed as a project for an art exhibition in Melbourne, Australia: “Have you ever opened an Apple MacBook Pro box, inhaled and thought, ‘If I only I could smell like the inside of this box, I’d be the coolest person ever’? If so, your (frankly disturbing) dreams are about to come true with a new fragrance by Air Aroma, based on the smell of unboxing a new MacBook Pro. Rather than the more traditional scents of sandalwood, rose or ylang ylang, Air Aroma acquired “samples of fragrances with the aroma of glue, plastic, rubber and paper” from the South of France to create the Apple-based perfume.”

There was no intention of distributing the scent on the commercial market, but interest level is so high across the web that I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this actually winds up for sale at some point in the future.

And then we’d be entering a whole new era of digital age perfumery as we rush to smell like our favorite computer products and virtual characters — could a ‘Marcus Fenix‘ cologne be a possibility?

After all, Prada has already teamed up with ‘Final Fantasy’ to promote its Spring 2012 menswear collection, and with a stunningly realistic holographic version of late rap-star Tupac Shakur making a much-talked about appearance at the Coachella arts and music festival, perhaps a brave new future of virtual celebrity merchandising is just around the corner.

Brave new merchandising opportunities — fully programmable and fully cooperative

Because why risk an international Sharon Stone incident or a Prince-sized lawsuit when a brand can just license its own virtual representative that will do and say exactly what they need.

*UPDATE: Speaking of virtual technology: Now, try on sunglasses without stepping inside the store! — “American department store Bloomingdale has introduced a new store-window technology that lets passers-by see how they look in a variety of designer sunglasses . . . There are six interactive windows in place through May 7, each showing four women’s frames by a different designer . . . The “Virtual Style Bar” windows work by aligning your eyes with ovals on the glass. Once you’re in the right place, it takes a few seconds for the sunglasses to appear on your face on a 42-inch HD flat screen. Users can try on all four pairs in each window by tapping different icons on the screen.”

Who knows? Soon we’ll all be trying on entire virtual outfits without having to enter a store, and probably purchasing items by simply tapping digital icons on street-facing shop windows as holographic celebrities sing and dance their programmed encouragement.

*Other (and scent) related: Fragrance blogger Barbara Herman of the site ‘Yesterday’s Perfume’ just announced a book deal with Lyons Press to publish “Scent and Subversion: A Century of Provocative Perfume.” Make sure you stop by her site and give her a congratulatory clap on the back.

2.) Big Fashion Brand News:

*Drowning, not waving: British heritage brand Aquascutum (founded in 1851) goes bankrupt, administrators move to close its sole UK factory: “Aquascutum is to shut its factory in Corby where the company has had a presence for more than 100 years, making 115 staff redundant. The clothing retailer, which has dressed Winston Churchill and the Queen Mother, collapsed into administration on Tuesday after making ‘significant losses’ despite efforts made by owner Harold Tillman to turn it around.”

Harold Tillman also owned British brand Jaeger, but just sold off the majority of his stake in Jaeger to Better Capital, a private equity firm owned by British venture capitalist Jon Moulton.

The quick sale of Jaeger is rumored to have been a necessity in order to settle its debts and prevent the brand from going down with the Aquascutum ship.

Jaeger Spring 2012 — in debt and out of fashion

An article by Luke Leitch in The Telegraph — “Our fashion labels: coming apart at the seams” — suggests that distinctly British brands like Aquascutum and Jaeger are in trouble while brands like Burberry and Mulberry thrive is because Burberry and Mulberry know how to court the global consumer; to be just British enough to charm foreign buyers while still appealing to international trends and sensibilities.

But commenters to his article disagree and point out that Burberry and Mulberry gave up everything that was British about them years ago as they chased after global consumers with the usual perfume, scarves and keychains trifecta while abandoning British manufacturing and textiles, the only two things that made them “British” in the first place.

Which begs the question: What’s British (or Italian, or American, or French) about fashion brands that manufacture in Poland, Romania, Turkey, China and India? What does being British (Italian, American, French) mean in the fashion industry if both labor and materials are outsourced to other non-British (etc.) countries?

*RELATED: Billion-pound Burberry: Brand is only British fashion label to reach £1bn sales — “Thanks to its revamped image, the company has reported record sales of £1.3 billion in six months, the only British fashion brand to achieve such a feat in retail history . . . Paris-based Luca Solca, global head of European research at investment bank Crédit Agricole’s Chevreux brokerage arm, told the Evening Standard: ‘It has graduated to mega-brand status, in the same league as Vuitton, Gucci and Prada.’”

Burberry Fall 2012 — the billion dollar British brand not made in Britain

*EVEN MORE RELATED: The fashion & leather goods segment of French luxury conglomerate LVMH reported revenue growth of 12% for the first quarter of 2012, perfume & cosmetics grew by 9%, and watches & jewelry notched the biggest revenue growth rate of 17%.

It was noted that “Celine in particular” notched very strong growth in the fashion & leather goods segment, which is important when you recall that LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault considers Celine to be the blueprint for the future of his fashion empire, including mega-brand Dior.

*Grow baby, grow!: Armani enters franchise relationship for India expansion — “Armani will sign a franchisee deal with Genesis Luxury, which has a joint venture with Burberry in India and represents brands such as Canali, Jimmy Choo and Bottega Veneta in the country . . . (Genesis Luxury) plans to open 20 more Armani stores over the next four-five years and take Emporio Armani, Giorgio Armani and Armani Jeans brands to cities such as Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata . . . Armani recently tied up with designer Suneet Varma to bring in its kidswear brand Armani Junior into the country.”

Indian luxury spending is forecast to more than double by the year 2015, so there’s a lot of renegotiating and repositioning happening in that particular market with global brands like Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Bottega Veneta and now Armani entering into new partnerships and shifting away from old alliances that weren’t bringing them up to speed as fast as they had hoped.

3.) But What Does It All Mean?

This Is Why You Fall in Love With Brands — “We can use the same labels for brand relationship constructs that describe interpersonal relationships when appropriate, such as flings, committed partnerships, best friends, or we can come up with labels that are unique to marketing relationships like best-customer relationships. But labeling does not reduce this phenomenon to a simple metaphoric exercise.”

Which brings us to:

‘It’s Not You, It’s Me,’ We Tell Our Clothes — “In a retail climate overrun by new labels, with design teams frequently changing direction to remain competitive, the days when a customer would stick to, say, Brooks Brothers or Talbots for life might be over. And severing ties with a brand, for whatever reason, can come at an emotional cost.”

But I sometimes wonder if contemporary consumers are having a hard time with their brand relationships because the relationship is mostly one-sided? Consumers may love the brands, but the brands don’t love consumers back, they only love the way that consumers love them.

As Rob Walker writes in “Buying In: What We Buy and Who We Are“, the dialog that the majority of brands have with their customers amounts to little more than, “But enough about me — what do you think of me?” and this is not a healthy foundation for any long-term relationship.

I received an email a couple of days ago from California artisan Basil Racuk and he mentioned an article he was working on that addresses this same theme — the relationship consumers have with brands, and especially luxury brands, and how the idea of 21st century luxury has progressed beyond mere notions of expensive bling to embrace, instead, a ready and willing access to product designers, and a personal relationship with the laborers who actually create the merchandise.

Without this access, without the personal relationships forged between, say, Basil and his customers (or even Etsy shoppers and Etsy shop owners), what we choose to purchase is merely the end-result of convenience and marketing — and we all know how relationships of convenience are ultimately static and unsatisfying.

This is why we’re seeing global brands like Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Hermes throw open their normally secret process to let customers in. They understand the power of the personal relationship.

Fendi sends its artisans into the world to meet consumers and craftsmen

*Speaking of Etsy: The online handcrafting site is taking its reputation seriously and cracking down on sellers that offer factory goods instead of the personal handmade items that are what Etsy’s supposed to be all about.

But why bother? you might think. Because Etsy understands that without that personal connection between producer and consumer, an Etsy shopper may as well be trawling a Wa-Mart or Macy’s website, and that’s not enough to keep people coming back for more.

Money quote: “Tania Ginoza says she shops for items like vintage glassware, jewelry, art and letter press stationery about once a month from Etsy. ‘It’s a really good feeling to support someone who may just be starting out with crafting and jewelry making,’ says the 43-year-old financial comptroller in Maui, Hawaii. ‘When you correspond with a seller a lot of times you are talking directly to an artist,’ she says. ‘That’s pretty cool because you can develop a relationship with an artist.’”

And this relationship with the artist is what Basil Racuk means by “access”, and how the future of luxury will be defined by the quality of interaction between producer and consumer instead of the number of Swarovski crystals sewn onto a handbag flap.

March 31st, 2012 / Berkeley, CA

Dear Laurie,

Thank you so much for taking the time to smell my two perfume samples, Sepia 8A and Sepia 8B. Your reactions were insightful about both, and I agree with you that while sample 8A is pretty, it doesn’t convey the mood of aging and lost worlds that I’ve been so interested in somehow conveying. So I’ve focused my attention on 8B, performing numerous revisions while keeping to the same set of essences . . . plus I added oud!

I’m happy with it and feel it has now “become” Sepia. Here’s what’s in it:

Top: blood cedarwood, pink grapefruit and yellow mandarin
Middle: pink lotus, jasmine, strawberry, cocoa and coffee
Base: indole, ambergris, tobacco, labdanum, cepes and oud

I was surprised that it took me this long to add a touch of oud, because what could express elegant decay better than the dark, aromatic agarwood resin?

I dialed back the cocoa and the pink lotus in the formula while bumping up the blood cedarwood, pink grapefruit and yellow mandarin. The top note is now mostly dependent on the yellow mandarin, a sweetly floral citrus oil from Italy that’s key to the way the blood cedarwood remains richly engaged and woody.

*Note from Nathan: Italy is one of the world’s leading producers of bergamot and mandarin oils, including red, yellow and green mandarin.

When I was working through the different versions of this perfume, I was struck by the fact that each version had many aspects I liked, but other essences would distressingly crash and collide for a disharmonious shape to the overall perfume. I found that as I began dialing things back and shifting proportions around, the essences relaxed and eased into a much more harmonious structure that better reflected the sense of emotional stillness and detachment I so wanted to communicate.

Crumbling Gold Country walls in a sepia-toned ruin — photo by Aftelier

In the end, after many episodes of tweaking and refining, I came upon what I believe is just the right proportional relationship for each essence in order to achieve that whispered atmosphere of decay among the beautifully weathered buildings of California’s Gold Country, along with its landscape filled with crumbling secrets and past lives.

While I was creating Sepia, there was a song that I listened to about a hundred times, “Brownsville Girl” by Bob Dylan (and a hundred times is not an exaggeration!). Actually, this is often the case for me, as I always make perfume while listening to music. I adore this song and it communicates the “no regrets” atmosphere of the ghost towns perfectly.

This eleven minute song, that he co-wrote with Sam Shepard, is considered one of his best — which, to me (a big Bob Dylan fan) is really saying something. In the song, while traveling through the West with a new lover, Dylan speaks to an old lover. He keeps referring to a Western film starring Gregory Peck as a touchstone about his ambivalence regarding his own fame. It’s a song of blossoming romance, passionate love and loss, aching remorse and deep wisdom.

When Bob Dylan was honored at the Kennedy Center by President Clinton, Gregory Peck introduced his work and award with a speech based on that particular song:

“A kind of 19th century troubadour maverick American spirit”

I’m sending you a sample of the final Sepia perfume. I’ve tried it on several friends and found that it’s one of those fragrances that twists and turns on the skin depending on the wearer’s particular body chemistry. I do love the way that perfumes can sometimes highlight the varied animal aspects of our humanity.

And now that I’ve reached the end of my own creative journey in this project, I wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed doing these letters with you. I’ve appreciated your openness about your very personal creative process, the generous sharing of your materials and the insightful feedback about my own perfumes.

Creating perfume is usually such a solitary experience for me, and I’ve really liked being able to see into your process and learn how you create. It’s made me feel that I know you and your work so much better.

Warmly,

Mandy

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April 5th, 2012 / Healdsburg, CA

Hi Mandy,

I just received your final mod of Sepia yesterday, and like it very much! The drydown has a unique combination of woodsy and animalic notes with a warm, but not heavy, amber tone in the base. The indole, ambergris, tobacco, cepes and oud all have animalic aspects, but they play nicely together, which is quite a feat. I’m not familiar with yellow mandarin, but I can tell that I love it after trying these mods, so I’ll have to get some.

This blend grows on me the more I wear it, and as it becomes more familiar, I become more attached to it. I’m really enjoying the drydown very much. I think you really did capture the mood of the ghost towns and their theme of elegant decay that you set as your goal.

It’s interesting that you mention listening to music as you work. I find that I can listen to music when I’m doing tasks that require less intense concentration, but when I’m really concentrating I prefer my surroundings to be relatively quiet. Music is so soul-stirring that it does easily inspire creativity, but I focus better on scents without the extra sensory input of music, though I like the visual treat of a beautiful view out the window.

Beautiful views that helped inspire Laurie’s “Forest Walk” — photos by L.Erickson (click to enlarge)

I wanted to close my letter by saying how much I’ve enjoyed this project and how much fun it’s been to get to know you better.

Years ago, when your “Essence and Alchemy” book first came out, I read an article about it in the San Francisco Chronicle and immediately acquired a copy of the book to read.

At the time, I was just playing with essential oils and absolutes in oil bases, trying to create simple floral blends to enjoy during the winter months when my garden was out of bloom. Your book inspired me, letting me know that it might be possible for me to learn the art of perfumery and go beyond the simple blending of a few floral oils. You must feel good knowing that there are many people around the world you’ve touched with your writing. I know it’s brought the joy of perfuming to many people’s lives, as it has to mine.

I’m sorry that my own contribution to this Letters project, “Forest Walk”, isn’t quite done, but it’s getting close and I’ll be sure to send you and Nathan samples when it’s finished.

Thanks again so much for the chance to exchange ingredients and thoughts about our creative process! And very best wishes with your exciting new book project!

Laurie

PS — The forest pictures were taken in a wilderness park just a few minutes from my cottage. My dad helped me get these pics, and they show what the hills are like around here in spring with the wild grass and old oaks.

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April 5th, 2012 / Auckland, NZ

Hi Laurie –

I got your generous package in the mail yesterday, and am looking forward to testing out the various raw materials (black hemlock, Indolene 50, Firmenich civet, hydroxycitronellal) plus your own Nostalgie perfume sample and the samples of your Forest Walk trials.

Mandy also sent me her finished version of Sepia, and while I initially balked at its quiet, introspective nature (I feel like I’m quiet and introspective enough without wearing it, too!), it quickly grew on me. Of course, I had to turn off the stereo, close my eyes and sit quietly in the center of my living room to get the right “vacated ghost town” frame of mind going, but Sepia made total sense once my brain performed the necessary leap from public to private space.

And because of the materials Mandy stated she’d added to the base (indole, ambergris, tobacco, labdanum, cepes and oud, not to mention the cocoa and coffee in the middle), I was fully expecting a big ol’ punch to the nose, yet she managed to somehow rein in the big boys and achieve an utterly confounding result — the composition sounds on paper as if it’s going to be huge, yet it turns out to be sheer, light and nearly translucent, like dust hanging in a shaft of sunlight.

*NOTE: Mandy’s Sepia surprised me in much the same way that I was surprised by the sheer, light nature of the new Maison Francis Kurkdjian Oud. When someone mentions “oud”, I expect a dark, rich powerhouse of a scent, but damn if it isn’t all 21st century workplace friendly, instead.

Mandy also sent some natural Indole isolate, which I found surprisingly pleasant and enjoyable. It has a more aggressive profile than the Indolene 50, but that may have more to do with the dilution differences (the natural Indole was at 1%, while the Indolene 50 was at 0.5%), though they’re quite similar — but I got next to none of that mothball feel you were talking about from the natural isolate; instead, it was very toasted and earthy with a waxy, fleshy quality that was highly appealing and yet also oddly off-putting.

Getting down and indole-dirty with our perfumers — photo by N.Branch

I loved putting my nose to the bottle, yet couldn’t hold it there for more than a few seconds at a time, it was so intense. Your black hemlock material was also intense, but in a bittergreen, leafy manner — and could be almost a perfume in and of itself, at least by the more minimalist contemporary standards set by companies like Escentric Molecules.

The Indolene 50, however, while exhibiting some of the toasted earthiness of the natural Indole isolate, leaned more on the mothball side of the equation, while also having a softer overall profile. Again, I don’t know if that has to do with the different concentrations or if the natural Indole isolate is indeed more heavily and intensely animalic than the Indolene 50.

I’ve only done a cursory drive-by of the two “Forest Walk” mods so far, but I get what Mandy means by the “seaweed” smell — there’s an almost saline-green aspect to both samples you sent, maybe due to the moss you’re using? Because it does remind me a lot of both wet seaweed and the scent of wet, green moss on rocks.

Growing up in rural Michigan while also living an extensive chunk of time in the Pacific Northwest, I’ve walked through more than my share of damp, green forests and this accurately captures facets of that experience. It feels quite literal at this point in the creation timeline — are you shooting for literal or do you plan on veering off into a more abstract take on the forest walk?

Best,

Nathan

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April 5th, 2012 / Healdsburg, CA

Hi Nathan,

Glad that package finally arrived! I just received Mandy’s final mod yesterday and I like it very much, too (as explained in the letter I just emailed to her). I agree that it’s amazingly fluid and smooth given all the heavy-hitters in the formula.

You would get much more of the mothball note in straight indole than in the indolene. The synth indole I have has a strong mothball component to it.

I do get wet, mossy rocks in Forest Walk, and so have most testers. Maybe the difference between mossy rocks and seaweed isn’t too far, and maybe they are just on a continuum with each person smelling it at a different spot on that continuum. I’m not fond of my seaweed absolute sample, and this mod doesn’t smell like that to me. If it comes off veering that direction to some people though, I’ll want to make adjustments because I want forest, not wet coastline.

Damn the coastline, it’s full forest ahead! — photos by L.Erickson

I want the scent to put people *in* the forest, so in that sense I want it to be literal. Several people have said the floral notes read strong enough to them and they don’t want it much more floral than it is. I would enjoy more violet in it myself, so I may try that. I also want to experiment more with the moss and green notes.

My very first mod was less literal and more floral, but the first few testers thought it should be more literal and foresty, so I headed off in that direction and liked where it took me. I need to try a couple more things and send some more testers out. I just finally filed my taxes today, so I can get back to Forest Walk again.

I will keep in touch on Forest Walk. I’d love for you to test another mod soon.

Thanks for sniffing!

Laurie

PS: I like mod 25b better than 22; it seems better without the synth moss ingredient that I removed in 25b.

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April 5th, 2012 / Berkeley, CA

Dear Laurie,

I was very moved by your sweet and tender letter.

It’s so meaningful to know that “Essence & Alchemy” had this role in your life. It’s the whole reason that I write my books, and to hear that from you, someone I have such admiration for and respect — that is deeply moving to me.

Thank you so much.

Mandy

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Arpil 6th, 2012 / Healdsburg, CA

Mandy,

Your book crossed my path at a perfect time. It was especially meaningful for me to do this series because I’ve looked up to you over the years. :)

Laurie

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April 6th, 2012 / Auckland, NZ

Are you two finished with the mutual love-fest yet, because if this turns into a group hug, I’m outta here!

But fine, I agree, the Letters series between the two of you really *has* been the perfect way to wrap up the overall “Letters to a Fellow Perfumer” series for, at least, the discernible future (and because Mandy has a new book to write).

Mandy’s continued presence was a wonderfully unifying and guiding light throughout all of the separate projects, and I’ve grown to deeply admire and respect her talents, skills and accomplishments as each individual project has unfolded — not to mention that I feel like I gained a great friend as we worked closely together managing, discussing and editing the projects during their progression.

I’ve also very much enjoyed our behind-the-scenes look into the lives of each of the other terrifically independent and talented participants: Andy Tauer, Liz Zorn, Dawn Spencer Hurwitz and now you, Laurie, here at the end.

I’m looking forward to the completion of your “Forest Walk”, and I can’t think of a better way to wrap up this series than with two perfumes that are interpretations of physical places and journeys. It seems only fitting.

My bottles of Sepia are in the mail and winging their way to New Zealand as I type these words, and I’m hoping I have them in my hands sometime early next week so that I can douse myself in the elegance of decay.

Decaying into beautiful drama — photos by Aftelier

God knows, my daily routine could certainly use an injection of elegance (of any sort).

I’m sure other bloggers will have reviews of “Sepia” up before I can take pictures of Mandy’s new packaging and tap my own thoughts out on my keyboard — I’ve become way too slow on the uptake with reviews lately, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be wearing the h*ll out of the stuff in the interim. I already had to order a replacement for my dwindling supply of Secret Garden . . .

*Relevant aside: And right on cue, the Twitter reactions begin to emerge:

1.) Joey Alycia — “@AftelierPerfume blew it out of the fragranced waters with Sepia. Just when I thought Mandy couldn’t top herself, she tops herself. WOW!” and 2.) Carrie Meredith — “@AftelierPerfumes Sepia. Dense, hard-packed and dusty soil submitting to the wind; this is where cracks in the earth are born.”

Plus, Victoria Frolova hosts a short Q&A with Mandy over at her Bois de Jasmin website: Q&A with Mandy Aftel about Aftelier Sepia

So thank you Mandy and Laurie for a great finish to what I hope was a very enjoyable Letters experience for everyone involved (you, me and the rest of the readers). I appreciate the huge amount of time and effort both of you put into communicating what’s an incredibly difficult thing to describe — the driving forces of creativity and inspiration.

Here’s to wishing you much luck and success in all your future endeavors. And Mandy, I can’t wait to read your new book when it’s finally written and published! Which will be, like, what . . . 2014?

It’s so hard to be patient in the digital age.

Nathan

***This is the conclusion of a series of letters between independent perfumers Mandy Aftel and Laurie Erickson. You can find their previous letters at the links below:

1.) Letters to a Fellow Perfumer: Mandy Aftel & Laurie Erickson (ep. 1)
2.) Letters to a Fellow Perfumer: Mandy Aftel & Laurie Erickson (ep. 2)
3.) Letters to a Fellow Perfumer: Mandy Aftel & Laurie Erickson (ep. 3)
4.) Letters to a Fellow Perfumer: Mandy Aftel & Laurie Erickson (ep. 4)

1.) The Rumor Merry-Go-Round Finally Stops Spinning at Dior:
“Belgian designer Raf Simons is taking over as artistic director at Christian Dior, the Paris fashion house announced on Monday, ending months of speculation over who would replace his disgraced predecessor, John Galliano . . . Simons, who previously worked for fashion house Jil Sander and is known for his understated looks, was long considered an unlikely candidate as Dior conducted exploratory talks with more high-profile rivals ranging from Marc Jacobs, head designer at Louis Vuitton, to Alber Elbaz of Lanvin.”

Back in 2011, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault hinted at a new approach for Dior, as well as a new look at the old ways of luxury branding overall, stating that he felt the impeccable tailoring and chic styling of the Celine brand under the artistic guidance of Phoebe Philo was the future destination for high-end fashion’s yellow brick road.

“‘It will take time, but [Céline] is on the way,’ Arnault says (in an interview with fashion journalist Robin Givhan). ‘Phoebe has the potential. She is doing a style which is completely in line with our time’ . . . Arnault suggests it’s time for change, time to recast his global, glittering, status-laden empire as something else. The watchwords are: intimate, Old World, artful. And the timing feels right.”

Below is a video clip of the Celine Spring 2012 collection, showcasing the kind of intimate, artful flourishes that Mr. Arnault believes are crucial to the success of a 21st century luxury brand:

Celine Spring 2012 — “Couture has been such a big talking point this season”

And now, after watching that show, take a look at the work Raf Simons was doing for Jil Sander before he was hired by Dior. I think it becomes immediately apparent that Arnault has a vision for the future of Dior, and it’s the Anti-Galliano future, ditching overt theatricality and brazen excesses to focus on sheer strength of design:

Raf Simons for Jil Sander, Fall 2012

Because if the understated chic and wearable-couture sensibility of Phoebe Philo is what Bernard Arnault truly admires, he couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate designer to head the LVMH flagship brand than Raf Simons, though Simons most certainly has a pressure-filled job ahead of him.

From the article, New Dior designer faces tough task to polish brand: “The stakes are high because in many ways Christian Dior, part of the luxury goods empire of billionaire LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, has become the public face of the group. While LVMH’s iconic Louis Vuitton brand accounts for more than half of its operating profit, it is the splashy Dior commercials featuring a rapidly disrobing Charlize Theron for which LVMH is increasingly known.”

*NOTE 1: I have to admit to a certain fondness for interim Dior designer (and ultimate fashion industry underdog) Bill Gaytten, the Dior Atelier head pattern-cutter who was thrust into the glaring spotlight after Galliano’s ousting, and who had the unenviable (and thankless) task of learning how to be head designer for one of the world’s biggest luxury brands on the most public of stages: What will become of Bill Gaytten?

*Personal Aside: I’m kind of hoping that Mr. Gaytten is allowed some small measure of creative freedom, such as continuing on as head-designer for the much smaller John Galliano label. It would be seriously cold on the part of LVMH management if they returned him to anonymity in the back room, especially after all the kicks, cuts and bruises he suffered for Dior at the hands of what turned out to be a rather merciless press corps.

*But speaking of Old World and artful: Vanessa Friedman at the Financial Times writes that the ‘Downton Abbey’ TV show has made a big splash in the world of fashion, influencing countless runways and inspiring numerous trends, and she tries to understand why — “A friend suggested that the Downton effect was attributable to the mixture of soap opera and period, which means that the show gets the broadest possible audience. Another said she thought it had to do with the undiscovered nature of the time period; precisely because it has not been a classic part of the fashion scene, it is primed for re-discovery.”

Downton Abbey, with the kind of popularity that all the catwalk CEO’s crave

From a Fashionista article about how popular Downton Abbey is with the fashion crowd: “At the Victoria Beckham show I remember overhearing Glamour’s Cindi Leive discussing the show with her seat mate. That is how much of a thing it is . . . (so when) Ralph Lauren opened his fall (2012) show to the theme from the hit British period drama, the weary crowd of editors literally squealed with delight.”

Is this the kind of “old world” reference that Bernard Arnault was talking about? It’s not very Phoebe Philo or Raf Simons, but it does seem to hit a chord with the contemporary consumer.

For example, when the BBC mini-series “Sherlock” first aired (a contemporary retelling of the Sherlock Holmes stories), it’s tailored Savile Row look proved so popular that heritage Brit brand Belstaff quickly rushed its long overcoat back into production to meet the sudden upsurge in demand, but only for a limited time, much to the dismay of fashion hounds that arrived late to the party.

Sherlock Holmes reignites a fashion for classic tweed coats: “A far greater mystery, surely, is why the BBC hasn’t put Sherlock’s lovely, swishy, swaggery, tweed coat into production? Belstaff, who made the original, say they are not producing any more for the foreseeable future and there’s only one left in store. Hello? Are they insane? . . . Think what a cult the Withnail tweed coat became and mark my words if the same doesn’t happen to the Holmesian version. Dolce & Gabbana’s and Ermenegildo Zegna’s catwalk shows this week had clearly ransacked the sleuth’s closets, and Ralph Lauren can’t be far behind.”

Ah yes, Ralph Lauren — he’s apparently ransacking British heritage style before the British even think to get back around to it.

See also: How Sherlock became stylish

*NOTE 2: I’d also suggest that the increasing popularity of the BBC resurrection of the Dr. Who series — with its uber-Brit wool overcoats, tweed blazers, suspenders, bow-ties and brogues — is also having a monumental impact on current menswear trends.

It seems it’s all about the Brits these days: British fashion manufacturing having a revival

2.) *As long as we’re on the subject of Brit brands: Lifestyle brand Dunhill has been rapidly expanding in China, and was one of the beneficiaries of arriving early and expanding aggressively, but Dunhill grew so far and so fast throughout China that they damaged their own brand, becoming, essentially, victims of their own success.

The signs that Dunhill was on its way to being out of favor in China started as early as 2010: Get rich, ditch Dunhill — “The basic theory is that as a new generation of entrepreneurs emerges, the absolute last brand they will patronize is the one popular among the first wave of get-rich-quickers – and that’s Dunhill. The last 20 years have been good to Dunhill in China, but many younger men don’t want to be identified with the man-bag-clutching, chain-smoking, thin white-socked brigade and their love of Dunhill belts.”

Dunhill presentation in China — trying to woo back their Asian clients

In 2010, Dunhill was second only to Louis Vuitton for popularity among wealthy Chinese consumers, but after a very aggressive expansion scheme into second-tier markets, the gleam wore off the Dunhill nameplate as wealthy Chinese consumers began to look to other brands that hadn’t cheapened their once upscale names by opening hundreds of stores in bland shopping malls.

From the Red Luxury article, “What happens when top-tier brands get too much exposure in China?” — “The problem seems to be that Dunhill didn’t storm the market as much as flood it. The large number of stores means savvy and sophisticated consumers in first-tier cities look elsewhere for exclusivity . . . Many Chinese consumers think Dunhill is sending a mixed message: the Shanghai Dunhill Home store embodies ultra-luxury, but no other (Dunhill) store comes near its level of sophistication.”

As a result of its fading popularity in Asia, Dunhill is returning to Western markets in the attempt to jazz up its influence and engage a new generation of customers in the United States: “After years of aggressive expansion in Asia, Alfred Dunhill is gambling big on the U.S. market . . . ‘We, in the last six years, have focused where the fish are for us, and that was predominately in Asia, that’s what we went out to focus on. We now have the need to focus on the west, and that is the U.S.,’ Dunhill CEO Christopher Colfer tells CNBC.”

The article notes that about 30% of Dunhill’s revenue stream comes from sales in China alone, so Dunhill still has a lot invested in the Asian market, but with excitement waning for the brand among China’s big spenders, Dunhill is hoping the revival of classic menswear in the U.S. market can goose some consumer interest in the brand’s very British heritage and history.

*Speaking of engaging new customers: Final Fantasy + Prada: When Gaming and Fashion Collide — “Square Enix, creators of the Final Fantasy XIII-2 game, collaborated with leading fashion brand Prada and Arena Homme+ fashion magazine to feature its main characters Noel, Hope, Snow, Sazh, and Lighting. All five models adorned Prada’s 2012 spring and summer menswear line.”

Scott McCollum, a Senior Marketing Content Manager at OnMessage, had this to say about the Prada + Final Fantasy collision: “It’s a clever co-marketing gimmick, but the typical doughy thirty-something urban white hipster manchild in America that loves Japanese comics and cartoons probably won’t even notice it.”

For a counterpoint to Scott’s assertions, check out: I Got My Fashion Sense from Video Games (And You Can, Too!)

Though judging from the flood of “I hate this article and the guy who wrote it!” comments under the Video Game Fashion Sense post, I wouldn’t call it a particularly successful counterpoint to McCollum’s assertions.

INDUSTRY QUICK HITS:

A.) Former Jimmy Choo founder Tamara Mellon sold her stiletto-heeled soul for cash and regrets it: “‘What happens in private equity is they come in and they say we’re going to be a great partner. We want to hold this long term and we’re going to help you nurture and build this brand,’ Ms Mellon, who left Jimmy Choo in November, tells the Financial Times. But ‘the day after signing, they talked about selling the business’.”

And right on cue, that very same private equity group trots out its tired routine of artist-brand collaboration in order to pump up media interest in Jimmy Choo (while probably ginning up extra attention for a contemporary artist they might also be heavily invested in promoting): Jimmy Choo teams up with Rob Pruitt for new collection — “Another collaboration between the art and fashion world has been announced, with Jimmy Choo revealing a team-up with contemporary artist Rob Pruitt for a capsule collection of shoes, handbags and leather goods . . . Pruitt is best known for his glittery panda paintings and creating the Guggenheim Art Awards. Last year he unveiled his statue of Andy Warhol in Union Square, New York.”

B.) 107 Garment Workers Fainted In Cambodian Factory This Week — “According to WWD, employees of Sabrina Garment Mfg. Corp. fainted in a factory that is believed to produce apparel for Nike Inc. Local media blame the fainting to overexposure to chemicals and poor ventilation, but Nike has yet to release a statement . . . 284 workers fainted in a factory that produces apparel for H&M last August and in June, 49 workers in a factory that produces for Puma also fainted.”

Someone is paying a high price for cheap goods, even if it isn’t the consumer.

Check out “Blood, Sweat & T-Shirts” for a sobering look at what working & living conditions are like for a lot of the workers who produce fast and cheap fashion.

*RELATED: Why Luxury Brands Will Fail Without A Clear Design Philosophy — “After having gone through the recent financial crises, many people still want to enjoy luxury products but at the same time they don’t have the desire to show-off their wealth as much. That is why luxury brands today need to focus on fulfilling core values. It’s all about quality and an improved life . . . People care more about where materials come from and about quality and design as well as their individual style.”

C.) Luxury retailers in India shrink the size of stores to maximize profit: “When luxury brands started setting up stores in India a few years ago, they decided to go with their global format of large stores; however, such large stores failed to generate the revenue that big stores should generate . . . While retailers cannot alter duties or cut down on manpower costs drastically, they are looking to save on the rentals. It makes business sense because, as a few retailers say, they have been able to optimise the retail space by reducing the size of the stores.”

D.) Consumer demand sees strong growth for natural cosmetics in the Middle East: “An increase in consumer demand for green and organic products has seen the natural cosmetics market in the Middle East grow 20% in 2011, with the UAE market comprising the major portion of regional demand.”

But the natural and organic sector for beauty products still has a long way to go if natural brands wish to make a dent in overall consumer demand, currently representing only 3% of the market share in Europe and North America, and only 0.1% of the overall market in the Middle East.

Which may help explain why Marc Chaya, the CEO and founder of Maison Francis Kurkdjian, stated in a May 2010 article with The Philippine Star that “An all-natural fragrance does not exist” — even though all-natural perfumes clearly do exist, and Mandy Aftel has the FiFi nomination to prove it.

*NOTE 3: I mean, yes, sure, it may help *explain* the statement, but it certainly doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.

I guess if you’re a finance and business consultant who’s now fronting for a self-described luxury French perfumery with ambitions of a future corporate merger/buyout, then natural products are such an insignificant portion of the total beauty and fragrance marketplace that the segment will be all but invisible to the incurious eye.

But hey, incurious corporate eyes are exactly why independent artisans are flourishing — more consumers want to know where the raw materials for products are coming from, who’s making the goods they buy and exactly what’s in the stuff they find on store shelves.

1.) Could Designer Maxime Simoens Be Headed for Dior?:
“After designing for the house of Leonard for a mere (one) season, designer Maxime Simoens is already headed for something new — though it’s not clear yet what that “something new” could be . . . However, if you believe the rumors, Simoens has also been in talks with Dior for the top spot as designer (currently, former Galliano collaborator Bill Gaytten is running the show.) That means he joins Raf Simons and Haider Ackermann in the long list of possible contenders for one of the most coveted positions in fashion.”

Mr. Simoens is the youngest member of the Chambre syndicale de la haute couture, the official trade body that governs the French haute couture industry — though Simoens is presently listed as a “guest” member and not yet an “official” member of the Chambre).

*NOTE 1: A guest member is invited by the Chambre to show on the haute couture schedule (though they’re not designated as a grand couturier), and if, after at least two years of bi-annual shows, the Chambre agrees that the guest member exhibits a sufficient level of consistent quality and execution, he/she can be elected to grand couturier (or so says Wikipedia).

Mr. Simoens was hired as creative director for French fashion brand Leonard in only October of last year, which is kind of a new speed-record for a designer to come and go from a label.

Maxime Simoens for Leonard Fall 2012 — a one-shot deal

Simoens insists that he left Leonard to concentrate on his own brand, which was already in existence when he signed on with Leonard, so it seems safe to assume that the rapid hello-goodbye act with Leonard wouldn’t be happening if there weren’t something larger on Simoens’ horizon — such as getting hired by Dior.

Adding fuel to the rumor fire, Fashionista.com reported that Dior will announce a new head designer by the time of the Fall 2012 haute couture shows in Paris this July.

2.) Marc Jacobs Wants to Make Money from Makeup:
“Marc Jacobs already takes care of all of our clothing, jewelry, scent, and handbag needs, we might as well let him take care of our faces too because that’s exactly what the fashion designer plans to do. Expanding his already far-reaching fashion empire, the designer is in the beginning stages of adding one more aspect into his design mix: a cosmetics line.”

Jacobs is in early talks with cosmetics chain Sephora to produce the line. Sephora is owned by French luxury conglomerate LVMH, which also owns a 96% stake in Marc Jacobs International, so the two brands are a natural, corporate fit.

But why a Marc Jacobs makeup collection now, especially after so many years without one? Probably because makeup collections are the new cash cows — especially nail polish and skincare, with WWD reporting that beauty retailers are launching their own branded lines of skincare in order to capture market share from already existing customers, with the NYTimes stating that department store brands have seen a 67% jump in sales of nail polish over the past year.

So why let that kind of business just pass you by?

Marc Jacobs Fall 2012 — equal parts whimsy and chutzpah

Besides, all the cool kids on the block are doing it — Burberry, Armani, Chanel, Dior, YSL, Tom Ford, Dolce & Gabbana. The Jacobs brand, with its global clout and world-recognized name, was looking increasingly like a less than big name player by comparison, especially after Ford — a much smaller though far more expensive and exclusive brand — so successfully (and only recently) expanded its small lipstick line into a full-on range of color cosmetics.

This could also be a test-case for how well an American fashion brand can penetrate the world of color cosmetics. All the existing fashion-designer brand ranges are French and Italian (well, except for Tom Ford, but he made his name at Italian brand Gucci, so he’s kind of an anomaly in that respect).

*NOTE 2: Prada had a limited skincare and color cosmetics line that launched in 2000 but eventually folded in 2007 due to lack of consumer interest. Which makes sense, because when I hear the name Prada, I don’t think “hydrating gel!”

I’m curious as to how the global cosmetics market will respond to an American color brand that doesn’t have the history and “heritage” of its French and Italian counterparts. But because Jacobs is so very distinctly American in his aesthetic, maybe that will be enough to help set his color cosmetics brand apart in what’s already a *very* crowded playing field at all price levels.

But with Sephora and LVMH at his back, it’s hard to see how such a project can fail, especially if he keeps his youthful Marc by Marc Jacobs clientele in mind and offers a subversively trendy cosmetics range at a lower price-point than the more staidly glamorous French and Italian competition.

If I were MAC, I’d be feeling a little nervous.

*RELATED: But you know who’s not feeling nervous about makeup competition? Dolly Parton, that’s who: “‘Someday I hope to have my own line of makeup and my own perfume. I would love to do that, that’s one of the things I have planned for the future,’ Dolly told CountryWeekly.com . . . ‘I’d like to get back into the wigs again, too/”

*NOTE 3: I almost kind of wish Marc Jacobs and Dolly Parton would collaborate on a joint cosmetics release. I can only imagine the whacked-out kind of Gay-Male New York + Big-Hair Nashville hybrid that would result.

Yeah, I don’t know why the Disney characters are in there, either

*In other Big Brand Beauty News: Coty tries to buy Avon — “When on Monday Avon Products Inc. rejected a $10 billion buyout offer from Coty Inc., it was more than just the latest hot news from the Street. The story resonates on multiple levels as, once again, another icon of American business culture may face extinction. Coty’s offer is just another reminder of how time-honored companies must somehow find a way to transform fabled legacies – a catalogue for Sears, a lady ringing a doorbell for Avon – in a world where people shop online, and where working women aren’t at home to answer that doorbell.”

Avon has been doing poorly for the last several years, losing millions in revenue and its stock price plunging, but 80% of its sales revenue comes from overseas markets, and Coty sees that as a very desirable foot in the international door-to-door (if you know what I mean).

Coty is known mostly for its celebrity perfumes (Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Madonna, David and Victoria Beckham) but it’s been buying up smaller skincare and color cosmetics companies lately, and while 90% of Coty’s sales presently come from Europe and the US, Coty views the purchase of Avon as a means to expand their product offering away from an over-reliance on perfume sales while also breaking into lucrative markets like Brazil and China.

*NOTE 4: Perfume is still a profitable market, but it’s good business sense not to put all of your eggs in just one basket. See: Perfume chain’s survival at risk as sales evaporate

Here’s some more information about the mutual benefit of a partnership between Coty and Avon from the Businessweek article, Coty Prefers Closely Held Structure for Avon Turnaround: “Coty and Avon agreed that a combination makes some strategic sense, with Avon bringing skin care and make-up to Coty’s perfume-focused offerings, along with an entry into Brazil and other developing markets, the people said. Coty sells to a range of retailers including upscale department stores and mass merchants. Avon would get access to Coty’s marketing and research and development resources, along with some higher-end Coty products its representatives could sell.”

Another surprisingly big perfume and skincare player in Brazil is Tupperware — yes, you read that right, I said Tupperware: “After realizing about a decade ago that consumers in the region spent more than 20 times on beauty products than they did on containers for leftovers, Tupperware altered its strategy. In 2005, it bought six beauty brands, spending $557 million. Since then, the beauty business has quietly grown to account for 26% of Tupperware’s total revenue . . . about half of Tupperware’s $711 million in sales in Latin America alone came from the beauty products category.”

The article points out that the direct-sales model of companies like Avon and Tupperware is the most successful for Brazil because #1) there’s a lack of retail space outside of major urban areas, and #2) the country’s women are looking for ways to earn an income.

Classic Avon commercial from 1962

*Since we mentioned perfume: Thar she spews! Synthetic whale vomit could shake perfume industry — “Researchers at the University of British Columbia identified a gene in balsam fir trees that could eliminate the need for ambergris — a strong perfume fixative created from a regurgitated mixture of seashells, fish bones and a sticky inner-stomach substance that turns into a rock-like object once it reacts with sea water.”

To be frank, synthetic ambergris substitutions are old news, with synthesized ingredients like ambrettolide, ambrinol, ambroxan and ambroxide already seeing well-established use in perfumery. What’s interesting here is the isolate compounding from the balsam fir tree, which means there could (potentially?) be a substitute for the rare and expensive ambergris that’s still natural but much less expensive (if I’m reading the article right).

But the article linked above makes some weird scare-quote points about whales being in danger from the insatiable desire for natural ambergris in perfumes — which hasn’t been a concern in decades (at least).

Natural ambergris is, as previously noted, much too rare and expensive to be used in any mass-market sense (plus there’s already plenty of synthesized substitutes), so only independent perfumers with limited market penetration use the real thing.

And since the majority of genuine ambergris is harvested once it washes up on beaches instead of being taken directly from the animal (ambergris has also been called floating gold because it can be found floating in the ocean, too — in fact, it’s only after “weathering” in the sunshine and ocean water for months to years that ambergris “matures” and becomes valuable), I’m not exactly certain why the headlines for this discovery are as weirdly “SAVE THE WHALES!” as they are.

Maybe because most journalists don’t know how to use Google . . . ?

*UPDATE: Tania Sanchez (of Perfumes: The A-Z Guide) weighed in on the matter with an appropriately frustrated tone:

*Sperm Whaling: “Sperm whaling is the hunting of sperm whales for a substance called spermaceti which was used in cosmetics, leatherworking, and lubricants . . . By the early 1740s, with the advent of spermaceti candles (before 1743), American vessels appear to have begun to take sperm whales in earnest . . . Sperm whaling increased until the mid-19th century, as spermaceti oil was important in public lighting (for example, in lighthouses, where it was used in the United States until 1862, when it was replaced by lard oil, which was quickly replaced by petroleum) and for lubricating the machines (such as those used in cotton mills) of the Industrial Revolution. Sperm whaling declined in the second half of the 19th century, as petroleum and other products began to replace spermaceti.”

*Spermaceti: “Spermaceti forms brilliant white crystals that are hard but oily to the touch, and are devoid of taste or smell, making it very useful as an ingredient in cosmetics, leatherworking, and lubricants. The substance was also used in making candles of a standard photometric value, in the dressing of fabrics, and as a pharmaceutical excipient, especially in cerates and ointments.”

So this mild journalistic freakout (57 articles in three days, by my count) about a new substance to replace ambergris in perfumes (which is barely used anymore except by very small brands and independent perfumers) that can stop the evil sperm whaling industry in its tracks (an industry already well into kaput-land, and which didn’t thrive on the trade of ambergris in the first place) is, as Sanchez stated, exceptionally lazy.

1.) Michael Kors and Coach Battle It Out for Accessories Customers:
“Since the (Michael Kors) company went public three months ago, his ambitions have become clear. Michael Kors aims to more than double its North American store fleet to 400 and more than quadruple to 1,000-plus its department-store boutiques. Michael Kors will operate in malls and street locations, like Coach, sell accessories-heavy collections, like Coach, and focus on “accessible” luxury, yes, like Coach. While both companies can thrive in the fastest-growing part of the U.S. luxury-goods sector, Kors may steal Coach customers.”

Coach reported a 15% increase in both sales and revenue in its last quarterly report in January of 2012, with strong sales and new store openings in Japan, North American and China, but other companies see the typical Coach customer as ripe for the taking — that the customers are more loyal to Coach’s “affordable luxury” price points than they are to the brand itself.

Bright colors, soft leather, chunky hardware and prices below $400 have made Coach a success

The Bloomberg article notes that Michael Kors company revenue is driven by sales of its accessories — 62% of its sales, to be exact — and that its handbags, like Coach, typically stay under the $400 price barrier in its lower-priced Michael by Michael Kors diffusion line, which is a much more profitable and better selling line than his upscale Michael Kors brand.

In an article for Forbes magazine, Michael Kors CEO John Idol states that, “The pure luxury accessories market was a crowded field with Prada, Louis Vuitton and others, but in the accessible luxury market there was Coach and not a lot of other competitors.” And now the Michael by Michael Kors line offers shoes, handbags, sunglasses and watches . . . just like Coach.

But it’s not like Coach is caving in under the pressure of competition. They’ve launched their own perfumes (to challenge the likes of Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren, for instance), they’ve reopened their menswear division and have dug deep into their archives to launch a retro-inspired collection that caters to a new consumer interested in color and style but without a bunch of flashy logos involved.

And all at prices that remain within that splurgy but still affordable $200-$400 sweet-spot.

It’s a tough retail world out there, and the competition for the mid-level consumer is getting nothing but more intense. The already established luxury brands (Prada, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Chanel) have pretty much nailed down their customer base, with very little room for up and coming labels to crack the ranks, but the lower-priced market is about value for the dollar — the best quality that can be purchased at a mid-level price. In that kind of environment, anyone can make a splash.

For example, the small Rebecca Minkoff company has teamed up with private equity fund TSG Consumer Partners in order to grab its own chunk of that exact same mid-level accessories market. And while Minkoff is presently a $35 million dollar company, they’ve recently expanded from womenswear & accessories into men’s accessories, too, so I don’t think they intend to be taken lightly.

Rebecca Minkoff Spring 2012 – bright, bold and full of accessories

*Speaking of menswear: Menswear fuels global luxury boom, executives say — “Whether it’s a desire to be as dapper as Don Draper on television’s ‘Mad Men,’ a need to look good for a job interview or just a hankering for new duds, men have increased their spending on fancy clothes, and executives expect the boom to continue . . . The global luxury menswear market is growing at about 14% a year, or nearly double the pace of luxury women’s wear, according to consulting firm Bain & Co.”

Also: WWD reports that Tom Ford has opened a three story menswear boutique in Paris, selling “eyewear, fragrance, footwear, accessories, sportswear and tailoring collections”; executives for French global luxury conglomerate PPR said that “one of the largest factors driving growth in the global luxury sector is the desire of more men to ‘take better care of themselves’”; and TVNZ reports that while men don’t shop as often as women, they’re more loyal to the stores and brands where they do shop — so if a brand can hook a male customer, they might possibly have them for life.

2.) Up to 40% of UK High Street Stores Could Close Over the Next Five Years:
“Four out of 10 shops will have to shut in the next five years as consumers turn their backs on traditional stores in favor of online shopping, according to a report which casts more doubt on the future of the beleaguered British high street . . . consumers shop more on the internet, with online sales forecast to reach £43bn by 2015, accounting for 14% of all retail sales. Some 22% of people did not buy their last item of clothing or accessories in store, and only 9% of customers want to see the full product range in shops.”

Other articles in the news have mentioned that the days of big box warehouse type stores may be over, now that online shopping has become more common and frequent. That when a store’s main selling point is convenience and low prices instead of customer service and a knowledgeable sales staff, there’s nothing to keep consumers from preferring to shop online rather than making a special trip to the actual shop.

Businessweek reports that the Best Buy retail chain is closing 50 of its largest stores and opening 100 smaller retail locations instead, and that chains like Wal-Mart and Target are following suit, emphasizing smaller locations and shops within shops.

Amazon — which sells everything from electronics and household goods to food and fashion — is reportedly benefiting from the migration to online shopping.

Even luxury brands — some famously reticent to establish online shopping — are having to adapt to the desire to shop online, with large consumer groups in India and China turning to online resources to find the goods they perhaps can’t access locally.

“Earlier, only youngsters were experimenting with buying stuff on the Net. Now, even the mature customer is getting accustomed to e-commerce, opening up an avenue for premium and luxury labels,” said Abhay Gupta, CEO of the newly launched Luxury Connect in India, while China Daily reports that “For the first time, the turnover of China’s online luxury goods shopping market has exceeded 10 billion yuan ($1.59 billion) and the market is likely to continue expanding at a year-on-year increase of 30 percent over the next several years.”

And as I noted in last week’s biz post, international online shopping has become so prevalent in countries like Australia and New Zealand that retailers are lobbying their government representatives to slap duties and taxes on all imported goods, no matter how low the value.

*NOTE: In a 2009 article, Karl Lagerfeld said that “the Internet does not convey ‘the unique feel and sophistication of luxury materials, refined tailoring and extraordinary attention to detail found in luxury fashion’ — He added that shopping for high fashion required a ‘multi-sensory environment’” — but fast forward to 2012 and we now have Karl.com

It’s amazing how fast you can be forced to eat your own words in the digital age.

*RELATED: Milan lags behind in fashion’s Internet revolution — “With social network sites and smartphone apps making rapid inroads into the fashion world, observers say Italy risks falling behind even as its luxury brands feel the pain from the economic crisis.”

Though, to be frank, Prada is one of the Milan fashion houses that’s not feeling much pain at all: “Italian fashion house Prada beat forecasts with a 72% rise in annual profit, joining the ranks of luxury companies to benefit from a growing class of wealthy shoppers in China and other Asian countries.”

Over 42% of Prada’s growth was due to sales in the Asia-Pacific region, with the United States and Europe clocking in at distant 20% and 16% growth rates, respectively.

Prada’s flaming hot girl-on-girl Spring 2012 ad campaign

By contrast, struggling luxury-brand Versace — which reported losses for 2008, 2009 and 2010 — just returned to profitability in 2011 but expressed only “cautious optimism” for its prospects in 2012.

A good reason for Versace’s return to profitability in 2011 could be traced directly back to the money it received for its collaboration with global fast-fashion chain retailer H&M, yet many H&M stores reported “a more than small amount” of returned Versace merchandise from dissatisfied consumers, so it’s unclear as to whether the arrangement was as good for H&M as it was for Versace.

*NOTE 2: Another sign of the potential weakness of the Versace brand — construction of the Palazzo Versace hotel and residences in Dubai is four years behind schedule amidst a weak marketing budget and a lack of demand from real-estate buyers. Adding insult to injury, competing Italian lifestyle label Armani has had its Dubai Hotel & Residences up and running since 2010.

*And as long as we’re talking about H&M: “Those H&M rumors have been confirmed: Hennes & Mauritz will be launching a new, upscale(ish) retail chain. As a rep from the company told WWD the concept would be similar to Hennes & Mauritz’s COS clothing line, which is trend-driven, but less so than H&M and priced slightly higher with more emphasis on fit and fabric.”

After all, why pay Versace a barrel load of cash for higher-priced merchandise that’s just going to sit in the return bins when H&M can do that perfectly fine all on their own?

INDUSTRY QUICK HITS:

A.) I don’t normally go gaga over an ad campaign, but Cartier just recently unveiled a gorgeous video ad that was allegedly two years in the making. It’s certainly worth checking out, not least because it so effectively manages to portray an air of high-end opulence while still being a video hosted on YouTube:

We’re pricier than your average panther

From “Is the Cartier ad the start of something new?” — “The ad embodies what television really should be: pure, driven and inspired creativity. It’s immediately clear the Cartier Odyssey ad is produced somewhere outside of the U.S. And it’s clear because U.S. luxury ads tend to drown viewers in excess.”

*Tragically relevant: If you’re a brand like Alexander Wang, attempting to portray your goods as hip, high-end and fashion forward, it’s best not to get caught up in sweatshop allegations and lawsuits, because then your shop windows get egged and no one looks good. You don’t see anyone egging Cartier windows, am I right?

*Even more tragically, and unsurprisingly, related: Kim Kardashian gets flour-bombed at her latest perfume launch, ostensibly as an anti-fur protest, but more likely because the whole phony-wedding fiasco turned the public against the Kardashians.

Eggs, flour . . . all we need now is sugar and a little baking powder to make ourselves a big “disappointment in crap brands” cake.

*Speaking of crap brands: Fashion industry initiative cracks down on labels that don’t pay models (and that includes you, Marc Jacobs) — “Marc Jacobs made headlines after one of his 17-year-old models blogged about being paid with just one outfit, rather than money, for 30 hours of work on his fall 2012 show . . . He Tweeted: ‘Models are paid in trade, if they don’t want to work with us, they don’t have to.’”

And for more perfume related hijinks, visit author and smell scientist Avery Gilbert‘s blog for a smackdown of cheap celebrities and the cheaper perfume companies they cozy on up to: What Do Adam Levine and Selena Gomez Have in Common?

B.) The legal claws are out as Dolce & Gabbana sue small South African jewelry store Dolce & Banana, and Gucci and Guess slug it out over the letter “G”: Gucci Accuses Guess of Massive Design ‘Knock Off’ Scheme

C.) Dior is reportedly planning to announce a head-designer by the time the July haute couture shows commence in Paris. Haider Ackermann is now rumored to be a serious contender for the job.

Haider Ackermann Fall 2012 — a good fit for Dior?

March 22nd, 2012 / Healdsburg, CA

Hi Mandy,

I received your recent package of samples –- thank you so much!

The liquid Parfum Privé smells truly heavenly. It’s amazingly beautiful. I love the floral heart (osmanthus is one of my favorite notes), and I love the smooth, velvety character; the indolic aspect of orange blossom can sometimes stand out too much to me, but not here; the spice notes are perfect, and I like the ambrette seed in the base. Shimmery is a good word for this scent!

If that quality is partly from the magic of ambergris, I want to try using it sometime!

Thank you very much for the ambergris sample, too. It is much deeper in color and richer in scent than the ambergris tincture I’d sniffed before. This is very helpful to know what high-quality ambergris smells like. I may want to try to get a little bit someday to do a tincture. It’s beautiful.

I’m trying your “ghost town scent” mods and having trouble with the ethyl phenyl acetate in them. I may be overly sensitive to it because I haven’t found a way to work it or related aroma chems into my own formulas. For me, it often dominates other notes. I like the cedar and tobacco in these mods, but the honeyed floral note from the ethyl phenyl acetate is stronger than the rest for me. It may just be me though, because when I’ve tried to use chems in this family before, I’ve had to dilute them down to extremely low levels.

I’ve sent you two more packages. In the first package, I sent you one mod of my “Forest Walk” and some more ingredient samples. The notes in the current Forest Walk mods are black and blue hemlock absolutes, galbanum resin, fir absolute, violet, jasmine sambac absolute, oakmoss absolute, western red cedar, oakwood absolute, New Caledonia sandalwood absolute, hay absolute, orris, Sri Lanka vetiver, Indonesian patchouli, earthy notes, labdanum, coumarin and benzoin.

I’m still testing, but the first mod will give you an idea where I am. I’ve just decreased the earthy notes because several testers thought earlier mods were getting too literal, smelling very much like the forest floor. When I decreased the earthy notes, I needed to decrease the sandalwood a little bit, which brought me to mod 22. Then I tried decreasing the benzoin and coumarin a little because I was worried about sweetness, and that led to mod 23, which is the one I sent to you.

I’ve since heard back from the two other people who tried mod 23 as well as 22. They were not bothered by sweetness in 22 and slightly preferred it because it has extra oomph from the stronger benzoin and coumarin.

In light of those findings, I just sent you a second package with a sample of mod 22 to try, as well as a mod 25B that is just like 22 but without a synthetic moss that I worry could be perceived by some people as musty. I’m using natural low-atranol moss up to the IFRA percentage limit, and I’m trying to boost the moss note with several other things.

Laurie shares her synthetic aroma-chems with Mandy — photo by Aftelier

I sent you samples of the two synthetic moss ingredients. One is called Evernyl and is found in natural moss. It’s a commonly used ingredient, but lacks the full character of moss since it’s just one isolated chem. The other moss item in mods 22 and 23 is a synthetic reconstruction that smells like it has Evernyl in it, but other things as well. It has a mossy aspect but also a musty aspect, so I tried mod 25B without any of that synth moss. I need to test more, but 25B seems brighter with more clear hemlock and floral notes.

I may prefer it, but I won’t be sure until I wear it more.

In the first package that I sent with the first Forest Walk tester, I also sent a couple more ingredient samples for fun. I included vetiverol and ambrettolide, which are available as natural Isolates. Ambrettolide lasts forever, almost annoyingly so to me, because it lasts over a day on my skin even after washing. I like it, but for me it’s best when it is not the last man standing at the end of a scent.

I find it disconcerting sometimes to find these extremely long-lasting isolate chems in all-natural scents these days, but when they are used with finesse they can bring some of the good aspects of the synth world to the natural world, and expand the options for natural perfumers.

I think people who truly love the beautiful natural absolutes, essential oils and CO2s that we already have will put the isolates to good use in ways that will enhance the more traditional naturals and push natural perfumery into an interesting new territory.

Many thanks again for sharing those very special samples!

Laurie

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March 23rd, 2012 / Berkeley, CA

Dear Laurie,

Thank you so much for your kind words about my Parfum Prive, and, yes, that shimmery quality in the perfume does come from the inclusion of ambergris, which has a particularly sparkling effect on orange flower absolute. I do hope you will experiment with ambergris — it’s extremely easy to tincture it. I’m happy to walk you through that process should you need any help. I’ve done several tests in the past where I’ve divided a perfume sample in half, then added a small quantity of ambergris tincture to only one of the two halves — the resulting difference between the two samples is usually quite remarkable.

And thank you for sending me your Nostalgie, which is perfectly named and reminds me so much of perfumery’s rich heritage. It has that vintage feel that recalls the floral aldehydic perfumes that my mother wore, with their powdery lingering notes. I couldn’t imagine being able to do that with my all-natural palette of essences. I don’t create perfumes that hearken back to the past, so I’m not over-saturated with those aromas and your perfume took me away from my everyday thoughts and into a faraway place.

The samples of so many raw materials were a real treat for me to smell; many of them which I’d heard other perfumers speak of for years. The neat synthetic civet was much more interesting to me than the diluted one you had sent to me earlier, but it still smells like a “lite” version of the smell of real civet. The aroma is similar, but without the depth and complexity of the real thing.

The way I think of individual synthesized aroma-chemicals has to do not only with their aroma but their shape and texture — which I find more two-dimensional and missing crucial layers of smell, yet you’re right about your prediction that I’d like the vetiverol, and I’ll look for a natural version of it. It sheds many of the troublesome vegetal aromatic facets that tend to randomly wander and connect uncontrollably with other essences in a natural formula in ways that simply aren’t pleasing.

Your Forest Walk 23 has a wonderful opening redolent of the black and blue hemlock absolutes (which I’m particularly fond of myself). The perfume captures the richness of a walk in the crisp autumn air in the damp forest when it’s covered with fallen leaves. My favorite of the two mods is #25B.

A walk through a very green landscape — photo by Laurie Erickson

I do smell something at the bottom of the Forest Walk perfume which has a kind of seaweed note that grows more pronounced as the perfume reaches the drydown. The different aroma chemicals you sent to me (the vetimoss and the Firmenich moss), which you think could be the culprit in the seaweed odor, do have that raw potato (as you so accurately called it) note — which might bottom-feed into that seaweed note.

After smelling the sample of Evernyl that you sent, I think you could rule it out as contributing to the seaweed issue I’m encountering in the base of your Forest Walk. Though admittedly, I may not be the best tester for your perfumes because I don’t think I respond all that well to synthetic essences. There’s something about the shape and the texture of them — the way that they evolve and linger — that just doesn’t appeal me.

I did manage to sample some natural ambrettolide a while ago, and liked it very much. I put it on a scent strip with some ambrette absolute and smelled them for hours, and then days, and what I found with my samples was I really prefer Ambrette absolute — the dry down was richer. So for me, there was no reason to switch over to a natural isolate. Working with natural isolates has most definitely broadened the texture, shape and scope of what I feel I’m able to create in perfume, yet I could never imagine utilizing them as anything beyond a minute percentage of the formula.

While natural isolates afford me the opportunity of creating an elegant and sheer aroma –– a different shape and texture from what I’m able to get with essential oils and absolutes alone — for me, the depth and richness of essential oils and absolutes cannot be matched; so as you conjectured, I see natural isolates as a useful but minor aspect of my perfumes.

On our last inspiration trip to the gold country, my husband and I visited a tiny California town called Sheep Ranch, which I found extraordinarily beautiful. I’m including pictures of two buildings from the town, but my favorite was the Pioneer Hotel built in 1868.

Playing Heidi at the Pioneer Hotel in Sheep Ranch — photos by Aftelier (click to enlarge)

It was eerily abandoned but totally intact; it had a wraparound porch with chairs on it but not a person in sight. Sheep roamed around freely in the side yard and as Foster and I came closer, they all seemed to responded to some private signal, banded together and quietly marched off. We took the picture of the interior through the window of the front lobby.

And I’m not sure I told you, but my ghost town perfume I’ve been working on now has a name: Sepia!

For a while, I wanted to call it Phantom — a name I absolutely loved until Nathan talked me out of it, telling me there was a popular comic book superhero of the same name that might elicit unfavorable associations.

*Note from Nathan: And a not so popular superhero movie, to boot.

An interesting thing happened for me in making this perfume which, I must confess, has happened many times before: I have an essence that I’m utterly besotted with and *determined* to include in a new perfume — this time it was poplar buds (yes, again).

With all my will, I try to shove, stomp, hammer and pound the object of my besottedness into the formula of a perfume because I’m so desperately in love with it. Usually, and only after repeated failures, I finally give up and get it through my stubborn head that it’s just not going to work.

What happened after giving up on the poplar bud obsession was that I threw out everything I’d been working on and started over –– all the blends that I sent to you have now found a new home down the drain of my sink. And starting from back at square one, I created two very different perfumes. I’ve sent you and Nathan samples of each — not only are they very different from each other, but they have nothing in common with the earlier blends that I sent you (the ones with the ethyl phenyl acetate that turned you off).

I’ve pretty much decided that one of these two perfumes IS going to be Sepia. Usually, without consciously knowing it, I quietly make up my mind when a perfume is “right” and finished. I’ve given both of them to my friend Egils to smell and we agree on which one will become Sepia (after some more tweaking and experimenting), but I want you to smell both the samples without knowing what’s in them, and I’ll tell all in my next letter.

I just want you to smell it fresh with no preconceptions.

Have I said that this is so much fun?!?

Warmly,

Mandy

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March 26th, 2012 / Healdsburg, CA

Hi Mandy,

I love the photos you took of your trip to Sheep Ranch! It must be eerie to see no one there but wandering sheep. Your photos show great detail and illustrate the character for those of us who haven’t been there.

I would very much appreciate some information about how to tincture ambergris, especially the percent dilution to use. I’m sure you’ve worked out a system and I’d be grateful if you shared.

Thanks, also, for sending your two most recent mods. You’ve not told me anything about them except that the one you will probably choose is not a crowd-pleaser type of scent. I love sample 8A and think it would find a lot of fans, but I find 8B to be more challenging, so I’m assuming 8B is the one you’re leaning toward.

The 8A mod opens with bright, juicy citrus notes and then transitions into an almost gourmand heart on my skin. I get a prominent golden honey note, like beeswax honey, and a soft hay/coumarin note. I also smell gentle woods and some soft musky notes in the base. I get what seems almost like a light cocoa note in the beginning stages, but I’m not sure what’s producing it.

I hope that even if you don’t choose this one for the ghost town project you’ll use it for something else because it’s very pretty. It would make a beautiful body oil scent, though the ingredients may be too costly for that application. It has a golden glow, and I think the name Sepia would fit because of the honeyed warmth I sense.

I find sample 8B challenging because an animalic note within it becomes too strong for me, but I’m sensitive to some types of animalic notes so 8B will undoubtedly work much better for others. I get some hay and citrus notes here too, but there are wood notes and animalic notes not present in 8A. I like the woodsy notes very much. At the very end I’m left with a lovely slightly smoky woody note on my skin; I get a cedar impression in the blend, but there may also be some other wood with which I’m not familiar.

The lovely smoky note is subtle, not like birch tar smoke, but like the smoky aspect I smell in my cistus fraction. The animalic note is not like indole or castoreum or civet to me, but is more like the barnyard smell of hay bedding in a stall (I think the hay notes and animalic notes are combining in that way for me here). That aspect would need to be toned down for me and then I might well love it because I enjoy the rest of the notes. Others may prefer it as is.

One thing I’ve found through testing my own scents is that people have a wide range of reactions because we not only have different preferences but we actually perceive the scent of ingredients differently too (I’ve found it fascinating to see studies that show how scent perception varies with differences in our scent receptors). The 8B mod does better fit the theme of the dignity of decay that you mentioned at the start of the project, so I can see why you may be favoring it.

What’s not to favor about Cooper’s Corral? — photo by Aftelier

I’m not sure what is causing the seaweed note that you’re getting in the drydown of the forest scent, but I agree it’s likely to be one of the synths or some interaction between several ingredients that I’m using in the mossy and earthy accords. I haven’t had a seaweed comment from other testers yet, but I’ve only had a small number of people sniff it at this stage so I’ll keep an ear out for that reaction and will try to figure out what might be producing that impression.

This is the first time I’ve tried vetimoss in a blend; I thought that its mossy, woodsy effect might be helpful, but I will try removing it to see if it could be the culprit. I plan to try a couple more mods and then will send it to a few more people to test.

The bulk of the formula is done, but sometimes I spend a while in the fine-tuning stage. I’m not sure how you want to wind down our letters given that you may be done with your scent quite soon. I’ll probably spend a little more time tweaking mine, but if we close the letters soon I could still get back to you and Nathan later when the forest scent is completely finished.

Phantom would be a great name for a scent inspired by a ghost town (I would not have thought of the comic book character, but other people might make that association). Sepia is a pretty name though, and would fit either of these mods. I’ll be curious to see which mod you pick for Sepia, and I hope you’ll find a way to use mod 8A, if not for this project, because it’s very pretty!

It makes sense to pick the one you associate more with this theme, and you can always make use of both in the long run if you wanted to do that.

Thanks again!

Laurie

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March 28th, 2012 / Auckland, New Zealand

Mandy and Laurie –

The pictures the two of you sent this time around are beautiful, and terrifically illustrative of what you’re talking about in your letters.

Mandy’s package to me is still stuck in NZ customs — I thought it might arrive today, but not yet, so I can’t play smell-along to Laurie’s evaluation. I’m hoping maybe tomorrow . . . ?

*NOTE: Samples arrived, and Laurie’s evaluations are spot-on. 8A is pretty, but 8B feels more true to the theme of “dignity in decay”.

I wasn’t the one who talked Mandy out of the Phantom name, though I agree with its comic-book associations and I did feel it was too straight-forward a name when I first heard she was considering it — but Mandy and I were talking about the name “Phantasm” and I reminded her of the 70′s horror-movie of the same name, which, even though Phantasm is a beautifully evocative word, that horror association is a no-go.

The last thing you want potential customers to stumble across when Googling the name of your perfume is this:

A horror of a naming predicament

And it was a popular movie franchise with three sequels, so it’s not like it was going to be an obscure reference that few people would run into.

We then commiserated over how difficult naming a perfume can be in the digital age:

Mandy: “Aaaaaaagh!”
Me: “Gosh, I know.”

I’ll get started on editing this round of letters, and you two can figure out how you want to wind the project down in the next batch — Mandy has some new packaging she’s been working on, and maybe that can be something the two of you can talk about, as well, because Laurie has just gone through a redesign of her boxes and bottle labels.

I think the packaging issue could be an enlightening topic of conversation for perfume consumers to read, as we don’t really know the difficulties facing an indie brand when trying to buy bottles and design boxes. And with both of you fresh off the redesign process . . . ?

Of course, Mandy’s right about to launch into a big new project (interjection: she’s writing a follow-up to her groundbreaking “Essence & Alchemy” book, hurrah!), so keeping this series going with a discussion of packaging might not be in the cards. But I still want her to show us pictures of her new boxes!

Nathan

***This is a continuation of a series. You can find other letters between Mandy and Laurie at the links below:

1.) Letters to a Fellow Perfumer: Mandy Aftel & Laurie Erickson (ep. 1)
2.) Letters to a Fellow Perfumer: Mandy Aftel & Laurie Erickson (ep. 2)
3.) Letters to a Fellow Perfumer: Mandy Aftel & Laurie Erickson (ep. 3)
5.) Letters to a Fellow Perfumer: Mandy Aftel & Laurie Erickson (ep. 5)