so here's my question: are there fragrances that are older and maybe dated but that still work? marsha and i were talking earlier today about americans' tastes in fragrance and their fragrance habits, and i think it boils down to fads, not fashions, here and wanting to smell clean and freshly scrubbed. disinfected, and maybe a little fruit or flower on top. no hint of the smell of a living organism.
so what happens is that certain fragrances become so ubiquitous because they come to signal "clean" and "just-showered" and "up on the trends." we can all think of a host of these: clinique happy is sort of the ultimate, but there was ckone, that hideous bath and body works pear glace (or was that victoria's secret? it doesn't matter), maybe obsession for a while in the 80s.
come to think of it, here's another question: why can't i really come up with more of these zeitgeist fragrances going back before happy? is it because i was too young to be aware of perfume? only knew about perfumes marketed to girls? or is it because we approach perfume differently in the post-ckone world? is the heavily marketed and boring perfume a new invention?
it's probably some combination of those things. but there was charlie, after all, and jean nate, before there was happy. and there was benetton and love's baby soft. and chloe. and anais-anais. ok, never mind.
my point: mass-marketed, dated perfumes that nonetheless are good and can still be worn. this kind of grows out of the old lady smell thing, because i was wondering if there are smells that our granddaughters will smell on us and just think are the odor of decrepitude. are future generations going to associate pear glace with nursing homes? or are there smells that are pleasing to all and sundry? that haven't lost their goodness, even if they've lost their popularity, because they were pretty good to begin with? and what perfumes smell just so 80s that you can't really like them at all? do you have perfumes from your youth that were just it at the time but that now you can tell are not good?
marc jacobs was sort of thinking this kind of thing with his body splashes, kind of a return to jean nate. if i were a really dedicated perfume blogger i would answer these questions for myself, go through my collection and see what's up. maybe in a later post.
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10 comments:
I've been thinking about this a lot too. I recently read an article that said that the younger crowd (just younger than us) is really starting to get into older funkier messier frangrances. that the super light top notey thing (l'eau d'issey) smell really dated to them. (it takes me right back to andi's lipo and not bathing days so I can't even stand it.)
but people just older than us are still really into that super fresh thing. I think you can tell with all the new frangrances that are coming out right now (the new burberry, deseo, etc.) there's a trend toward a heavier base... a funky musk or some woods...
so interesting. where's the article? i want to read it. i totally forgot about eau d'issey; remember when those girls called it bacon juice? they kept thinking that guys loved it, but i always knew that guys would hate that kind of smell. too anal. or not anal enough, if you know what i mean. you've got to have some civet funk in there somewhere.
the new gucci is such a nice, heavy chypre. even those marc jacobs splashes are a bit musky and dirty. i guess it's connected to the vintage thing. the funny thing is that people our age actually wore musty old dresses from d.i. and had to spray that clean stuff to cut the old-clothes funk.
will any of those 90s fragrances be a classic?
luca turin is always talking up tommy girl and a lot of people have jumped on the tommy girl bandwagon. I think it could be a classic. man... just thinking about bacon juice makes me sick, but it's true about the funky old dresses. and the not bathing. maybe our own funk added up to something. it was a fresh scent moment you know. a happy headache generation.
You're asking deep, deep questions. Like the elves who dug too far and too deep. Or maybe it's just deep enough?
Either way, do you like that new Burburry one?
have you seen that commercial where that girl has all these guys chasing her and hot on her tail and she's putting cashews on her wrists and neck and clevage. Somehow I think the people who invented that pear thing were trying to appeal to men and not women. I knew so many guys who loved the smell of that pear glacee thing. yuck.
You know though, I think it has to be said that women in large part smell like something to stimulate interest from men (or women if they play that way). I wear this little eau de toilette from BBW called Velvet Tuberose that they had in winter and I think it's delicious...
eliza- I haven't decided yet about the new burberry. I like that it's trying to be musky and funky... at the same time I hate that. one trend I really don't like is the trend of issuing lighter fruitier versions of every popular fragrance for summer. that's getting lame.
erin- I really liked pear glace when it first came out. then it seemed like all the bitchiest girls I knew where wearing it and I had to stop.
I really like that velvet tuberose! tuberose is such an interesting fragrance- it's really polarizing. it seems like people either love tuberose or they hate it. it has that funky indole thing going on that most people react really strongly to. either positive or negative.
I was in bath and body works the other day and I was saying something about it to the person I was with, "tuberose is so..." and this stranger inturrupted me and said, "disgusting" and I said, "I was going to say, specific". because it's like that for some people.
thats funny about tommy girl. I still smell it on some people and go, oh my gosh? is that tommy girl? where do you even find that these days? It reminds me of youth dances in the late nineties. ugh.
This post helped me remember that when I was a little girl my sister and I loved my grandma's perfume which was Tresor by Lancome. Twenty years later I think she still wears it, but I would definitely class that as a 80s perfume.
This is a fun blog. I hope you don't mind me joining in the conversation.
i haven't really given the new burberry one much of a try. i should probably do that. but i don't generally like their stuff. smells too watery for me or something. but i guess this one is supposed to have more oomph, along the lines of the trend marsha was talking about.
btw eliza, how is the mitsouko faring? do you ever wear it? or your mom? (i mean does your mom ever wear it, not do you ever wear your mom--wakka wakka)
scg- we're totally glad for people to read our blog and comment! I'm speaking for Emily here too, because I'm pretty sure I can... on this one thing anyway.
yes, scg, i know who you are and i love you! and you can probably get european delicious fragrances for marsha and me that we can't get here...
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