Erotic Parfum & The Designer Approach: Why Did Designers Start Creating Perfumes?
Perfume Advertisement by Sean John
Over time, many brands have continued their successes by opening their horizons towards perfume. Companies such as Dior, YSL, and Chanel have created iconic scents for generations, offering consumers the opportunity to smell as well as look like the brand. But where did this wishful thinking begin? Has fashion always been connected to fragrance in this way, or is perfume creation a modern idea for the industry?
For generations, perfume has been subtly linked with the luxury fashion sector, and perfume design is very traditional in the realms of fashion: “fragrances give you the power to elicit a certain response, a certain emotion, from your customer. This will shape their response to your clothing. Think of a fragrance as an extension of your brand, the way customers see it as an extension of themselves.” As a cheaper product for many of these brands, which tailor towards specific clientele who spend tens of thousands on garments in a single purchasing session, perfumes give many who don’t usually get a chance the opportunity to get a taste of the brands they love. From the perspective of the brands, these products make up the majority of their sales due to demand for the name at a much cheaper cost. And for those that have already gained a customer base for their fashion houses, launching perfumes can be another way for consumers to maintain their loyalty. In some cases, the fragrances launched by fashion moguls become almost as iconic as the brands themselves.
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One case study of how successful fragrances can be is the iconic Chanel No. 5, created by Coco Chanel and labelled the most successful and popular fragrance around the world. “A best-selling beauty product is pretty impressive, especially in a market infiltrated by newness every other second. Then there’s that even rarer breed of hall of fame, try-before-you-die classics - The Ruby Woos, the Flowerbombs, and Creme de La Mers of the world - that editors and beauty fanatics swear by, but when it comes to the greatest of all time, there is no debate. Enter: Chanel No. 5 perfume.” Produced in 1921, Coco Chanel collaborated with celebrity perfumer Ernest Beaux to create a “sparkling, simple, yet seductive scent.” The origins of the name came from the five perfumes that Ernest Beaux made - Coco chose the fifth one, which instantly decided its name. At a time when fragrances were being made a great deal as part of a growing industry, the minimalist name of no. 5 took the market by storm, separating itself from the rather provocative names of its biggest competitors. It was a modern twist to the identification of such a seductive fragrance, offering a conservatism which made consumers feel empowered, romantic and modern.
Part of the appeal of Chanel No. 5 is the cleanliness of its scent, which many have likened to soap. According to the BBC, the smell of soap and freshly scrubbed skin was something that stuck Coco Chanel for years: “She was fastidiously clean and, when she worked alongside the mistresses of the rich, she complained about the way they smelt, stinking of musk and body odour.” It was rumoured that the concoction was actually the result of a laboratory mistake. Beaux’s assistant had added a dose of aldehyde in a quantity never used before - “the interesting thing about aldehydes is that one of them smells like soap.” The scent also integrated jasmine, rose, sandalwood and vanilla, which was an instant success with Chanel’s clientele. Traditionally, respectable women wore perfumes that smelled like singular flowers, while courtesans wore more brazen smells such as musk or jasmine. By choosing a scent that blended the allure of jasmine and musk with indefinable flowers and aldehydes, Chanel made a scent that questioned the notion of perfume indicating social standing, demonstrating a paradox that women could be simultaneously ‘sexy’ and ‘pure’.
For Chanel, this was the moment that confirmed for her that No. 5 was going to be a revolutionary perfume and, 100 years later, it is still among the top three most purchased perfumes every year. Now, the perfume is recognised as an aspirational purchase, not only as an homage to its history, but also as a sign of success, wealth and exclusivity.
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Paul Poiret, the French couturier and one of Chanel’s greatest rivals, is generally credited with being the first to introduce a signature designer fragrance in 1911, naming his fragrance company Les Parfums de Rosine in honour of his late daughter, Rosine. His brand featured packaging designed by Ertè, Raoul Dufy, and Paul Iribe, and Poiret becoming the very first designer in history to associate a perfume with a line of women’s clothing. Poiret’s original kimono-cut coats, harem pants, and plumed turbans echoed a growing mania for Eastern design, and his perfumes - with evocative names like Nuit de Chine and L’Ètrange Fleur, were daring blends of synthetic and natural materials, evoking the mysteries of the ‘Orient’.
Up until the 1960s, designer perfume was bought as a luxury due to just how much impact the world wars had on production and cost. Working-class individuals were still able to buy from cosmetic houses, but couldn’t afford fashion house couturiers, and though their products were quite pleasing in terms of smell, the name associated with them was absent from their appeal. It was in the 1980s that designer scents were marketed fiercely, with blatant erotic advertising generating enormous media attention. Magazines started supplying scented strips for consumers to smell, connecting imagery and advertising with smell.
Another example of a fragrance that has reached global heights is Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium, which glorifies another facet of YSL femininity, merging sensuality and seductiveness. Produced in 1977 by perfumers Jean Amic and Jean-Louis Sieuzac, the perfume’s notes of vanilla and amber are inspired by China, complimenting the brand’s Autumn-Winter 1977 collection. The “audaciously-named” fragrance immediately sparked controversy, with global press taking straight to the newsstands to criticise. But scandal only served desire, and the media frenzy generated sales, with testers being stolen, posters ripped down, and stores selling out upon launch. Opium is still worn today by Yves Saint Laurent fans, and Black Opium, a continuum launched in 2014, is also an international success.
Zöe Kravitz in a 2020 Black Opium Advertisement for Yves Saint Laurent
Nowadays, every fashion label that succeeds in the luxury sector often produces lines of fragrances that compliment its collections and heritage. From a consumer perspective, designer fragrances are a type of perfume designed specifically by the creative director of a brand. Research has also shown that designer perfumes last longer as a result of their quality, building both stronger sillages and loyalty towards the brand. In an era of cosmetic produce and skin/body care hype, these fragrances have left their mark, giving designers an edge when curating their perfect demographic - one which smells unique, sexy, and holds enormous appeal.