I am sorry, I love the smell, but show me someone who feels special wearing Beige and I will show you someone who is in desperate need of a makeover.
— Columnist Sarah Mahar thinks Chanel Beige needs a better name. Read more in A perfume by any other name … at the Sydney Morning Herald.
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I’d hate to meet the person who shelled out for it and then ditehred like that over the name – I’d immediately offer to re-home it so I could make the cat’s litter box feel special
She was gifted, it appears.
dithered, that is.
does this mean Coco Chanel was in need of a makeover?
No.
I once read a book by a fashion stylist in which she savaged beige garments as representative of the pathetic desire of the socially lame to avoid being noticed. According to her, those people might as well be dead–they preferred blandness, safety, inoffensiveness, and they just wanted to blend into the wallpaper. Good grief, what did beige ever do to her? Sure, it’s not as slimming as black, but it’s lighter looking in the summer and can be very chic. I suppose “Day-Glo Orange” would be more exciting as a name for a fragrance?
I like it better, myself. I don’t get too excited over fragrance names, but didn’t much care for Beige as a perfume name.
Well, she could solve her problem by lying about what she is wearing – isn’t that what we all do to avoid having our friends and neighbors “steal” our perfume? Besides, there are worse fates than telling a stranger that you’re wearing Chanel – she could have fallen in love with Paris Hilton Me and have to admit to that.
WAY worse fates, LOL…
I feel like columnist Sarah Mahar must have run out of other things to write about.
And yes, I’m a bit crabby this morning.
LOL…you guys are crabby! I don’t like the name Beige either, and IIRC, it got tons of complaints here when it was first announced.
I feel like I have to think too much to find the inherent meaning behind such a name. Maybe they were thinking jet-set in a crisp, cool linen suit or something. What beige immediately conjures up for me are plastic stackable chairs in church halls and community centers. And if that’s not glamour, I don’t know what is.
Yes…I think it’s too much work to immediately call up the “Chanel” beige, exactly.
Well, it might be a silly name, but so are Fat Electrician and Nooka and FUBAR if you come right down to it…
If you love how it smells, just tell yourself (and others?) that you’re wearing Miss Flowerbomb Petite Cherie Cocktail d’Ete if it makes you feel better.
I don’t think the name Beige for Chanel seems silly.
They could say “I’m wearing Beige by ~*~*Chanel*~*~” and people will be like “*________* Chanel”
I guess ‘silly’ is the wrong word. As others have said, it just really connotes something very bland, insipid, and nondescript. Maybe “Taupe” would have been a hair better. Honestly, names don’t matter much to me personally in the end (but I would definitely lie about some of the Etat Libre d’Orange scents if I wore them and someone asked…).
Taupe is a hair better, Joe, but just a hair.
but Beige is more like a skin tone.
not to mention you can say Beige with an exaggerated French accent.
I disagree…taupe is worse. Maybe just bc I like the *color* beige better than taupe. I think of taupe as dingy beige. Yuck.
Ah, but “taupe” is the French word for “mole”. The animal, not the skin marking. Not at all a good name for a scent.
As far as I know, “beige” doesn’t have the same connotations in French that is has in English, where it’s pretty much interchangeable with “boring”. In French it refers to the colour of natural, unbleached cotton and wool fabrics, and eventually turned into a synonym for high-quality woollen fabric–a good name for a Chanel scent, although you’d have to assume they didn’t do any research into other markets, certainly not North America. Or maybe they just didn’t care. (They clearly didn’t when the named Sycomore, which looks like a typo to English speakers but is in fact how the word ought to be spelled, coming as it does from Latin “sycomorus”: Old French mangled the spelling into “sicamor”, we took it from them and turned it into “sycamore”, and then French fixed the spelling while we were stuck with the mistake until the end of time.)
Good point–she could just say, “I’m wearing Chanel.” Your average person wouldn’t know to inquire further.
The name Beige had a lot of meaning for Coco Chanel and hence the name. Coco thought that beige was glorious and even said
“I take refuge in beige because it’s natural.” If you look at her designs she makes the most of beige, black and white and texture, texture, texture! To me the perfume is all about texture! Beige is brilliant and this Columnist Sarah Mahar, in my not so humble opinion misses the point of Beige entirely.
Here, here!!! I adore Beige..and I think the name brings to mind Coco Chanel with all her refined, timelss elegance.
True, but would guess many people miss the point. And IMHO, that means it might not have been the best name choice.
When this first came out, we had a thread with some great alternative names for this fragrance. I admit to being quite swayed by names and bottles, but especially by names. While I appreciate the historical reference (Coco Chanel’s signature clothing color was beige, right?), I think that the name is a poor choice. Sarah Mahar’s idea of “Beyond Beige” is pretty clever, IMO.
So I’ve scoured the internet (ok, I looked in two places) and I can’t find anything to back me up. So correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Beige one of three color-related fragrances Chanel had discontinued way back when? I thought this was just a re-issue. I can’t remember the names of the other two…I want to say they were some variation on red and blue.
Yes… you are correct. Bois de Jasmine wrote about this, “The allure of this shade was not lost on Chanel who commissioned an eponymous scent in the 1930s, along with Rouge and Bleu, which were launched in 1940 and were meant to embody a tricolor of the French flag and to evoke the colors of Chanel’s last pre-war collection.”
the color beige reminds me of ballerinas.
Interesting..
I associate beige with “Hitchcock Blondes”… like Tippi Hedron, Grace Kelly, Madeleine Carroll, and Ingrid Bergman, etc. in a beige cashmere twinset with a single strand of pearls.
She obviously did not do her research into the history of the original Beige perfume and the color’s meaning to Coco Chanel.
What an ignoramus! But I admit I’ll be interested to read what she has to say about Rouge or Bleue if they are ever re-issued.
Sorry! I guess I don’t appreciate poorly researched opinion pieces, no matter how pithy or witty they pretend to be.
Hugs!
Ha! Rouge and Bleue! So I’m not crazy!
I couldn’t agree more! When I think of beige I think of 70′s Danish furniture, but Chanel Beige, well, that’s spectator pumps and utter chic. However, I did get a chuckle out of the Beyond Beige line!
‘Beige’, as a color and a concept, gets a bad rap in English. I’m pretty sure that the French treasure the color and the concept behind it. I, for one, look terrible in the color. In addition, Chanel Beige smells AWFUL on me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate them both on other people.
I have to be careful with the color beige or it makes me look dead. But I do appreciate it and have no qualms calling a fragrance “Beige.”
Totes, it washes me out completely. I wish it weren’t so, because as a neutral color, it is very, very chic. But I have to stick with black and navy.
I had read such good things about the fragrance that I sort of hoped it would be a olfactory substitute for the color I can’t wear, but alas, it does not work with my chemistry. Why does beige hate me so much?
Andrea, I can wear cream and taupe, which are cooler colors. Is that true for you? I can’t wear beige and camel, which by my definition are warm neutrals. I look truly sick in them (I’m blonde and blue-eyed, with a rosy/ruddy complexion). I once coveted a camel hair coat, but I looked hideous in the color and that was that.
Yes, cream and taupe work really well for me. But I’m pale, freckled, and have dark brown hair. And when I say that I can “wear” cream, I mean, “I can put on a cream colored shirt, which will look good for five minutes before I spill coffee down the front of it.”
Hence a largely black wardrobe. And I, too, have coveted many a camel hair coat. I console myself with lots of red wool.
Interesting. There could very well be a cultural difference. I look terrible in beige, too, but haven’t tried the fragrance. This thread is inspiring me to get my sample out…
Whatever you say about beige, it is a classy color, associated with spectator pumps and bias cut clothes and Long Island tea. And Chanel is the classiest perfume house in the cosmos (IMO).
Long Island iced tea is classy?! Tell that to the young ‘uns chug-a-lugging them to get as drunk as possible as quickly as possible! I’m with you on the spectator pumps and bias cuts, however, and beige can be decidedly chic, done right.
How about cosmopolitans, dirty martinis, or mint juleps?
Yes, please! Oh, you mean what the Chanel Beige lady would drink…
Hmm, I’d give her a gin martini or some Dubonnet, although champagne would be a safe bet too.
I think a perfume should be named after me: Lapin Adorable.
I thought that was Lapin Monstre?
That’s the flanker!!!
Lapin Stew ?avec les carrotes
The woman from Fatal Attraction could be the model!
ROFLMAO, peasinapod!!!!
I’d buy a perfume with that name! You should start a line.
LOL!
All this makes me think of those very attenuated names they used to come up with in the J Crew catalog back in the day for really standard colors – “pale dew” “lunch pail” “tractor red” “mongolean wheat” “celery sticks” etc etc… …. … Maybe Chanel should have called it: “Luxury” and called it a day.
Those were hilarious, weren’t they? (Was “lunch pail” actually a color? If not, it should have been!) I haven’t looked at their catalogs in years; do they still have those ludicrous color names?
I don’t know – I haven’t looked at one of their catalogs in years either. But I remember having a good laugh at how silly all those names were! I don’t know if lunch pail was a color, but it sounds right – maybe “brownbag” instead?
The Tweeds catalogue did that too, and then just strewed the clothes around with a list of colors – you never knew what was what. Which blue is that – Delft? Sky? Hyacinth? Is Hyancinth blue or pink? or is it that purple one? Gads.
I love beige, the color—it makes me think of soft, creamy-colored knits…vintage photographs with white tones that have aged, softened. It also makes me think of late evening sunshine, sand dunes and fashions of the late 20s/early 30′s, when people began mixing blacks, reds, whites and tans. Plus, beige looks gorgeous on all skin tones and in all textures; woolen knits, smooth satins, heathery cottons . It’s an unusual name for a fragrance, I’ll agree, but–for me, at least–it evokes laid-back luxe.
Have to respectfully disagree: I look absolutely dead in beige.
I don’t have a problem with the name, but I do like her suggestion of “Beyond Beige.” I still have not tested Chanel Beige, but wouId love to. I personally cannot wear the color beige at all, it washes me, but it is definitely classy on people who can pull it off.
Meant to say beige “washes me out,” not “washes me”, LOL.
I can’t wear beige, either, I look like a corpse. I can do some versions of tan and khaki and taupe and ecru, but not beige.
I do want to try the perfume, though – I totally get what they were aiming for with the name.
I think beige washes out people with cool-toned skin. I remember when Jennifer Connelly won her Oscar wearing beige and everyone talked about how bad the color was on her.
I think you’re right. True for me, anyway!
The problem is it’s not a TV color. It’s an accepted fact: bold colors or black are the best choices. Guess Connolly never heard that…
Found my sample out and tried it on! To my nose, the first phase was what I would call soapy. Soapy in a good way — it smelled like a generic but expensive soap. After about an hour, I’m slightly turned off by what smells like honey (not my favorite note). There are nice flowers, too, though. Hmmm…
Wow, really, you got honey? I never got there. Actully, I should probably retry the scent, because I’ve forgotten what I disliked about it. But I do recall loving Sycomore. (sp?)
I definitely got honey. Or honeyed flowers. Overall, I rather liked the fragrance, but probably wouldn’t seek it out again for myself.
I like the name Beige.
I think it’s cool in it’s hip blandness.
I like the color beige. A beige ensemble can easily be chic.
A beige mercedes with creme leather interior would be a much appreciated gift!
Seems incredibly trivial and narrow minded to consider Beige a terrible name for a perfume. Byredo Green – is that awful? Bulgari Black – what’s more bland than all black? Sheesh.
Exactly – as Nlb said above
“Layed back Luxe”
That’s exactly what Chanel Beige conveys to me. I love it. I much prefer laid back luxe to formal or “trying too hard” luxe.
LAID back – dear gawd I can’t spell!!
Laid back Luxe!
I think the Chanel site calls it “comforting to Coco”. But I hate the name. I don’t think most people will get it.
When ever I hear it I am reminding of the Sex And The City episode where Mr. Big complained about his new society wife’s redecorating his apartment, “Beige, beige, everything’s beige!,” –the walls are beige the furniture’s beige and maybe even the carpet.
Yep, beige reminds me of that SATC episode too!
I don’t really like the colour beige, with the exception of a camel hair jacket that i onced owned and which suited me. At the time I had long dark hair, blue eyes (still have blue eyes of course) pale in the winter, tanned in summer. I don’t think it is a good name for a perfume, it sound so BLAH. Brown paper bags are beige, and cardboard boxes, chipboard and other boring things.
I’ll tell you this: a perfume called Beige sounds much better than a perfume called Chanel Tan or Chanel Brown.
i read her article and i’m confused, does she mean to say the name of the perfume is bland, or the smell itself?
if the smell is great, why caring so much about the name?
She liked the smell, just not the name. Don’t know why it matters except that apparently it does
I’m not a fan of the colour beige either – mostly because it looks hideous on me. I do like that Chanel went with the name though. That’s what it was originally called and that’s what they’re calling it now. Also, it’s funny that a perfume called “Beige” gets people all excited simply because of its name.
Well, insofar as this is a perfume blog, I guess we’re willing to get worked up over most anything about a perfume, LOL…
She’s just showing her ignorance (re. beige being synonymous with understated elegance). Just like people who go on about perfumes being called Poupée or Nuit de Cellophane. Research the name before expressing an uninformed opinion!
Perhaps. Most people probably don’t care to research perfume names