Comments on: Van Cleef & Arpels Collection Extraordinaire ~ new perfumes

By: Robin

Robin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:15:51 +0000

Exactly.

By: eminere

eminere — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:42:21 +0000

Mass luxury isn’t really luxury, is it…?

By: Robin

Robin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:56:34 +0000

Oh, I really don’t think it’s just a matter of experience…also temperament: you might just be more optimistic than I am!

By: gvillecreative

gvillecreative — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:12:07 +0000

Well, I am a newbie. So maybe I just haven’t been disappointed enough yet! I could see that if you smell launch after launch that continually disappoint, people might want to blow off steam.

I haven’t smelled 1/100th the number of frags as most of the commenters here, and I totally bow down to their knowledge of what is quality vs what isn’t.

By: Robin

Robin — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:19:21 +0000

Gosh, blowing off steam about an upcoming launch doesn’t strike me as sad at all — people will give them a chance if they get to smell them, and I, for one, am always happy to eat my words (and I didn’t think MK VH was bad at all, although it isn’t genius either). People don’t balk about L’Artisan & SL because they consistently turn out good product: that strikes me as a perfectly reasonable response.

At any rate, really glad to hear they’re good, and sounds like I need to get some of the Muguet!

By: gvillecreative

gvillecreative — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:20:11 +0000

I realize that this thread is dead and WISH I could somehow respond directly to Robin R, and separately, put some comments ACTUALLY ABOUT THE JUICE above all of this, since I had the chance to smell them yesterday, have a complete sample set, and think that a few of them are quite good.

Since I just received the sample set yesterday, I’ll have to report back after giving each individual frag it’s own due. I wore a touch of the Orchide Vanille in the car ride home last night, and I can still smell that small touch on my wrist now, 12 hours later. These frags are very high concentration eau de parfum. And as to the smell– it was actually one of the nicer things I sniffed yesterday, and liked it much more than the two new Narciso Rodriguez (Essence and Eau de Parfum Intense) and much more than Natori. In fact, almost everything I sniffed somehow smelled more “commercial” than these frags. the Muguet was quite interesting (sharp!), and a take on it that I haven’t smelled elsewhere. And the Cologne Noire might be the most interesting in the bunch and really, really intrigued me. The only other frag that I thought was smart was Escale Portofino, which I had not yet had a chance to sniff before yesterday. Everything else seemed rather… done already.

Like Robin R, I’m somewhat a newbie to this industry and yet, I don’t get angry at a high end launch– I get excited to go out and try it (and yes, I’ve read ALL of the perfume books already a few times and read about the time involved vs the time given). I still like a few “cheap” frags like Bronze Goddess, but I love the “riskier” things like Tea for Two that I imagine wouldn’t sell well in a dept store, too. But I do give the new ones a chance. People don’t balk at a new L’Artisan or a new SL, so I think it’s unfair to not be as optimistic about Van Cleef’s new launch. There are a few great perfumers listed there (Hammani developed Chanel’s Gardenia and Maisondieu has created some risky stuff for Etat Libre) and these frags could have been developed in the past for someone great like L’Artisan, who passed because it didn’t fit their particular marketing image at the moment.

I too think it’s sad, especially since there are more than 40 comments here that are (basically) against the new VC&A frags, and they haven’t even smelled them. And this isn’t crap like Michael Kors Very Hollywood, which is truly ALL marketing and sweet pink generic juice in a pretty bottle. Now THOSE sort of launches are something to get angry about: those seem to be all about the ad campaign and not about frag development.

Count me on the optimist team.

By: Robin R.

Robin R. — Fri, 29 May 2009 01:11:09 +0000

Thanks to Joe, Robin, AnnS, Annemarie and everyone else here who has been so respectful of my Pollyanna-esque views. That’s the beauty of NST; we can speak our minds and disagree with each other’s points of view without ever descending to personal criticism. (And hey, just so you know, I can get pretty fired-up and downright cynical about the glut of “luxury” releases at discouragingly high prices, too!)

By: Robin R.

Robin R. — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:58:23 +0000

Thanks for the wise words and the encouragement, Ann!

By: thenoseknows

thenoseknows — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:43:47 +0000

Knowing numbers like that just make me sad. For it portents that the future of the industry is going to be much more Crap than Jewels! yes, there has always been Dreck, but now it seems the Dreck is the Standard, The rule not the exception. AND THAT is what is A Sin and A Shame!

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:19:12 +0000

It is no doubt true that there was always at least some dreck, but I think that a) everybody in the industry seems to agree that by & large, far more time was spent on fragrance development in the past, and b) far more $ (adjusting for inflation, of course) was spent on the juice. And of course, there weren’t anywhere near the # of releases that there are now.

And I think we all forget how rapid and recent the growth has been: when I started writing this blog in 2005, the “official” Michael Edwards count was 454 new fragrances. In 2008, there were more than double that. That’s astonishing — and we all know that the number of perfumers has not doubled since 2005. So I think it’s quite fair to say that they’re churning them out…