Fragrances Boutique

Donna Karan’s new Pure DKNY fragrance is reportedly built around a “drop of vanilla in water” — and not just any drop of vanilla, mind you, but a drop of vanilla ethically sourced from a women’s agriculture project in Uganda; as part of a collaborative project with CARE, “nearly 1,000 women [in Uganda] will gain new business skills”.¹ The packaging is recyclable, and the outer box uses low-VOC inks on certified forest paper. All of that environmental and humanitarian goodness, hopefully, will help the end consumer to relax and enjoy their purchase: Pure DKNY notes that in today’s fast-paced world, “you need a moment of calm, to find beauty in living simply”.

The “calm” and “living simply” evoked by Pure DKNY, mind you, is a very modern sort of “calm” and “living simply” — the opening smells entirely synthetic, and recalls any number of FRESH FRESH FRESH fragrances of the past 10+ years. I believe Donna Karan is calling Pure DKNY a floral, but Michael Edwards classifies it as a fresh water and that’s a better fit…

Donna Karan will launch Cashmere Mist Liquid Nude, a new flanker to 1994’s Cashmere Mist fragrance for women, in July:

Donna Karan’s Cashmere Mist Liquid Nude eau de parfum spray: a fragrance to seduce the senses…

Jean-Louis Dumas, Chief of Hermès, Dies at 72 (NY Times)
“Jean-Louis Dumas, who revived the flagging fortunes of Hermès in the late 1970s and in his nearly 30 years as the company’s chief executive transformed it into one of the world’s most successful luxury brands, died Saturday at his home in Paris.”
Louis Vuitton Tops Hermes, Gucci [...]

When I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband and I attended prenatal classes. Discussing strategies for birthing pains, the instructor asked us to practice visualizing our so-called “happy place”, the location in each of our lives that felt the most comforting, peaceful and self-affirming. She suggested mentally escaping the delivery to a favorite beach, a summer cottage or a honeymoon hotel in Europe. My husband frowned at me sternly. “Are you visualizing being in bed?” My guilty look confirmed this. “Not helpful. You’re going to be in a bed,” he said, shaking his head, “and it won’t be restful.” I try to make a point of acknowledging the occasions when he is right, and boy, he was spot-on that time.

Luckily, no labor, viral illness or bout of the vivid nightmares to which I am prone has ever lastingly tainted the experience of my bed for me. It seems only natural to perfume that place of refuge, my land of dreams. Sometimes, close friends or relatives ask why I bother spritzing or dabbing scent on at night, just before I fall as insensible as a stone. It is hard to describe to someone who is not a fragrance fanatic the secret joy of waking in the wee hours, when the world is black and hushed, to snuffle at your wrist. Or the feeling of well-being that comes over you on a sun-washed weekend morning when you wake up under a gently-scented duvet…

Marc Jacobs is again in the running for CFDA’s women’s designer of the year, and top accessory maker as well, but his fall collection of beautiful and modest clothes makes him deserving. Ditto Donna Karan who has sharpened up her collections in recent seasons. And Alexander Wang is fast building a brand.

Iris is the first new fragrance to join the Donna Karan Collection, which up until now was made up entirely of relaunches from the line’s back catalog. The Collection scents are all done up in opaque black glass; the packaging is handsome if rather functional looking (see below) and the bottles have a nice heft. They’re in limited distribution, making this a sort of niche-from-mainstream kind of line along the lines of the Chanel Les Exclusifs or the Armani Privés, although the prices are more reasonable than that perhaps implies.

On paper, Donna Karan Iris smells at first mostly of iris — not the rooty, bold, turnips-just-pulled-from-the-earth sort of iris à la Serge Lutens Iris Silver Mist, but the buttery-soft sort of iris that you get in Chanel’s 28 La Pausa, albeit without that elusive Chanel touch that makes so many of the Les Exclusifs fragrances smell like money. Later, Iris takes on a more floral character…

Donna Karan will add Iris to the Donna Karan Collection this spring:

The latest edition to Donna Karan’s iconic wardrobe of fragrances is Iris, a unique and mysterious scent…

From Calvin Klein, the 2010 version of CK One Summer. This year, the notes include watermelon, pear, mandarin, kaffir lime, violet leaves, marigold, verbena, water lily, patchouli, skin musk, vetiver and cedar…

Donna Karan will launch Pure DKNY, a new floral fragrance for women, in February.

Pure DKNY is built around a “drop of vanilla in water” accord…

Donna Karan’s fresh apple fragrance, DKNY Be Delicious (2004), has spawned a multitude of flankers and collector editions, of which the Candy Apple Trio — Ripe Raspberry, Sweet Caramel and Juicy Berry — is the latest. Apologies to its fans, but the original is not a favorite of mine, and of the flankers, only Delicious Night really captured my attention — and even that one is not really something I would wear. So I suppose you should take the following with an even larger grain of salt than usual?

DKNY Delicious Ripe Raspberry Candy Apple (red bottle, shown below; with notes of apple, lime, peony, lily and cola accord) is not as berry-ish as I’d expected — there’s much less berry than in Delicious Night, although this fragrance also has a much paler, fresher base so there’s less to counteract what berry there is. A nice shot of citrus in the opening keeps it from being too sweet while the raspberry calms, and overall, Ripe Raspberry strikes me as more fresh than candied…

A promo for the upcoming DKNY Pure fragrance.

A promo for the new DKNY Delicious Candy Apple fragrances.

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.

Strictly speaking these aren’t collector bottles and I don’t know if the set is limited edition (so why is it here? I suppose because it had nowhere else to go), but By Kilian will launch a coffret in February with 7.5 ml bottles of all eight of the fragrances in the L’Oeuvre Noire / Black Masterpiece collection. 95€…

Donna Karan will launch the DKNY Delicious Candy Apple collection in February, including three limited edition variations on the popular DKNY Delicious fragrance: Sweet Caramel, Ripe Raspberry and Juicy Berry…

Donna Karan Introduces Cashmere Mist Luxe Edition Celebrating 15 Years of Seducing the Senses.
“Cashmere Mist is the ultimate Modern Icon. For 15 years, it has been a worldwide passion – a soft, sensual indulgence for women to wrap themselves in year round. Cashmere Mist Luxe Edition adds a whole new level of luxury. It is my [...]

As it is for many people, fall is my favorite time of year. Perhaps this is because around here it is the most fragrant season: the cool, damp leaves send up a sweet, cidery rot, I could swear there is always a tinge of woodsmoke in the air, and the evergreens seem sharper and straighter as the deciduous competition flames out. Early every morning, after bumping around and out of my pitch-dark apartment, I take a deep draw of cool air and wonder if this smell is a regular olfactory hallucination, since I live in an urban neighborhood with bylaws against bonfires and no apple orchards for miles. Whether I am susceptible to seasonal scent suggestion disorder or not, I love the colors and skies of autumn, and the weather is often invigorating enough for me to look fondly upon the hooting, rowdy herds of schoolkids that suddenly appear on every sidewalk. Even if fall doesn’t make you feel this disgustingly cheerful, you can still spend your season of mists and mellow fruitfulness in gorgeous perfumes. Please comment with your own fall favorites and let me know if you’ve sampled the new Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles. I haven’t tried it yet, and am wondering whether it will be added to my current autumn Lutens rotation of Chêne, Santal Blanc and El Attarine.

Etro Shaal Nur: Rather like a more contemplative, citrus-tinged Habanita, this is an airy, incense-smoke version of Molinard’s classic vetiver-vanilla. While not being particularly strong — it’s better sprayed than dabbed — Shaal Nur has impressive projection…

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 Viktor & Rolf, the 2009 holiday limited edition of Flowerbomb…