Fragrances Boutique

More limited edition collector fragrance bottles, with the usual disclaimers: in most of these cases, the juice is unchanged, just the bottle is “special” (or not, as the case may be), and some of these may not be available in the US.

From Calvin Klein, CK One in the “we magnets” edition — it comes with 40 small magnetized beads. What you do with the beads escapes me, but they’re meant to symbolize ‘the connection between us all’. In 100 ml Eau de Toilette, due to launch this month…

Is men’s fashion keeping up with our imaginations?

Remembering a pair of old boots while still musing on modernity and fashion.

Balenciaga’s Nicolas Ghesquière talks about the new Balenciaga Paris fragrance. In French with English subtitles.

In his collection, Nicolas Ghesquiere delivers squares on stilts, circles, raised bars like neon tubes and textures suggesting packing materials.

Harder still to describe are jackets that resembled standard airy down vests that were somehow incorporated into what appeared to be a zippered jumpsuit.

Balenciaga Paris is the latest fragrance from Balenciaga. It’s the brand’s first major launch since Cristobal in 1998, the first effort under new licensing arrangements with Coty, and the first under creative director Nicolas Ghesquière. It’s fronted by Charlotte Gainsbourg, who is frequently described as Ghesquière’s muse (see the very low-key Gainsbourg ad here). Perfumer Olivier Polge characterized the floral chypre as “present” — “It’s here. When you wear it. You smell it.”¹

That might sound a little oblique, but it turns out to be a fitting description: when I first tried Balenciaga Paris on paper, my reaction was muted, and it wasn’t until I’d worn it on skin several times that I began to see what he meant. Balenciaga Paris wears like a minimalist veil — think Prada’s Infusion d’Iris or L’Eau Ambrée, although it smells like neither. It starts soft and fresh and watery…

In fact, in 1997, when [Nicolas] Ghesquière took the helm, “the house was existing because of the perfume license,” he says. “But what they were doing was not really corresponding to what I was doing. It was not my Balenciaga, not my vision.”

To ensure that the new fragrance captured his futuristic yet feminine aesthetic, Ghesquière [...]

Balenciaga will launch Balenciaga Paris in February. The new perfume for women, made under the Coty umbrella, will be the brand’s first major perfume launch since Cristobal in 1998.*

Balenciaga Paris was developed by perfumer Olivier Polge; the floral chypre features violet leaves, cedar and patchouli…

Here is Raf Simons’ version of a vertically striped t-shirt, from spring 2007, and one that Nicolas Ghesquiere showed today for Balenciaga.

Stark white was a story in Milan. Now, with even more visual impact, it surfaces in Paris-at Rochas, Balenciaga, beautifully at Rick Ownes, and in lace at Sharon Wauchob.

In one of those periodic mood swings, Nicolas Ghesquiere today took Balenciaga back to the streets. The clothes had a hard urban edge, beginning with hooded vests that combined leather and leather woven with other materials for an industrial texture.