Vintage Advertising Champions: The Two Faces of Y

What would you think if you were called  a designer's "devilishly aware clientele"? Flattery goes a long way, that's a given. But when it comes to Yves Saint Laurent in particular, it's such high praise that one has to swallow  hard a couple of times and seek what the advertisement indicates immediately. "The invisible dress" is also a great term for a perfume; something to make you "dressed" in the dark; dressed but also flatteringly revealed, mise en valeur as the French say. 

The vintage advertising for Saint Laurent's formidable first perfume, a cool dry chypre  like they used to make them, is noteworthy. [You can read my fragrance review of YSL's "Y" perfume on this link.]

Enjoy two versions of it. One insinuating, the other more explicit while still classy. As befits the designer of designers. 

Further reading on PerfumeShrine: Yves Saint Laurent news, history & fragrance reviews

Vintage Advertising Champions: Dioressence by Christian Dior

The oriental scent which began its historical arc as a "spa" and "all over" fragrance, meant to refresh and provide the stealth mantle of "a see-through charm". Inspired by the sea-like and skin-like smelling primal scent of ambergris...
Enjoy this vintage advertising for the original Dioressence perfume by Dior. (which you can buy easily on Amazon using the link)

And please read my fragrance review of Dior's Dioressence perfume on this link.

Vintage Advertising Champions: The Fabulous American Fragrance Even French Women Are talking About

In an advertisement from the 1950s where l'eau de parfum is advertised as nouveau et magnifique, to stress its "being talked about by the French" concept, Revlon Inc, purveyor of such timeless things as Cherries in the Snow lipstick, sells the idea of Intimate. Intimate launched in 1955 and was from the beginning advertised as premium stuff.

late 1950s

Even in the dark...he'll know it's you.

Intimate never shouts, but oh! how it whispers. 

One can almost picture the Madison Avenue ad men working on these lines with all the gusto of Don Draper's team from Mad Men.

And yet, despite the rather anachronistic (and sexist) implication that women wear perfume to appeal to men, isn't that tag line what fragrance is about? Creating an invisible mantle, I mean, marking your presence into space and into perception via an emanation that is denoting both your taste and your intentions, whatever those may be.

1968

By the 1960s it seems like the mood of the fragrance had become less cocktail hour, long dresses and stoles with compact clutches under one's arm, and more "intimate" companion to every day occasions.

Its message also became ambivalent.

Intimate, it's really a man's fragrance said the slogan., making you imagine that it championed the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the transgression of sexual and social mores.
Until you read beneath it and discovered it prompted men to buy their girlfriends this in order to enjoy it themselves.  So in essence it still made woman purchase perfume to use as a sexual predator.

Even in 1971 Revlon  said "Intimate communicates". This sexy animalic chypre fragrance did communicate. A ferocious appetite for intimacy of the horizontal kind.

1964

Intimate by Revlon  also appeared in another ad form the 1960s fronting a college types couple at the library in the 1960s, which was tagged thus: "cherished as one of the world's 7 great fragrances" Makes you wonder which were the other six!

Care to guess? Please do so in the comments.

ads via vintageadbrowser and ebay

Vintage Advertising Champions: Part of The Art of Living

In a totally typical of 1970s sensibilities pose and text, this print ad for 4711 Eau de Cologne reinforces the idea of scent as a well-being gesture. A luxury for every day, a quotidian gesture of pleasure after the bath or shower, the complement to your soap.

The scent of 4711 Eau de Cologne typified a whole generation in Greece; everything was bathing in it, it seems. But the memory and generational seal hasn't vanished. There came Greek equivalents like the lifestyle Mirto cologne which came in lemon, reminiscent of 4711, and in lavender, to be shared by the whole family as shown in the below commercial from the 1980s.
"You wear Mirto and you feel the coolness.
You wear Mirto and you feel the freshness.
You wear Mirto and you feel so much better,
Mirto, Mirto, Mirto"

There is also the continuous presence of the concept of Eau de Cologne in a retro style context in contemporary culture too!
Rous (in the music video below) recorded the song 4711 in 2013, in which it's incessantly referenced how the singer loves the trail of his fragrance wafting from his girlfriend after having sat at the back of his motorbike or from his left-over blouse in her apartment and just how much he loves it when strangers ask what cologne he wears. A genuine case of sensory pleasure becoming intellectual stimulus!




But the piece de resistance is probably this incredible commercial for 4711 from 1971 I found on Youtube. Tagged "the Body Cocktail" it puts the fizz in cheese; not a cheesy bone in its body. Enjoy!

Vintage Advertising Champions: Mitsouko or The Geisha & The Sailor

"For one crazy moment he feels he will stay. Then he turns towards the gangplank and walks very slowly in the mist.
Each one of their moments -the shy beginning, the electric touching of fingertips, the transporting passion, will disappear in the universal solvent of time plus distance.
Years later, a woman in a silk dress will pass by wearing Mitsouko. 
And 1921 will flash through him like a shock. He will not be able to forget the long black hair, the incredibly soft skin, the infinite tenderness...
Mitsouko by Guerlain."

In a Madame Butterfly context (harkening to the original novel La Bataille which inspired the creation of Guerlain's famous perfume Mitsouko set during the Japo-Russian war) the text of the above 1974 advertisement zooms in onto a powerful connection and perfume marketing apparatus: that of recollection triggered by scent. "1921: a fragrance will not let him forget."

What irony that the beloved memory of one might be felt off the sillage, the fragrant trail of another...

Vintage Advertising Champions: In the Trenches

Today's vintage advertisement comes equipped with the romanticism that has become expected from one of the classic perfumes by the historical house of Guerlain, L'heure bleue. The pictorial representation takes on the approach of fragrance as a "memory maker", a concept very popular with the fragrance industry because it seems to allow for the manipulation of someone else's emotional response; or so the thinking goes…(whether it is successful or not you'll be the judge of that, I'm sure you have many related experiences to relay in the comments).

The text for the Guerlain advertisement reads:

"1914, a fragrance creates deep, deep memories.
Guerlain introduced a perfume named for the twilight, L'Heure Bleue. No the skies darken and the western world is swept into the forces of the Great war…
A weary French officers finds a moment of peace. He pulls a letter from his tunic and inhales the fragrance lingering in the worn pages. 
It is the fragrance she wore the last night they spent together. L'Heure Bleue, named for that moment hen the sky has lost the sun but not yet found the stars. 
He reads the letter for the hundredth time…."

The advertisement is of course destined for the American (and English speaking) market as clearly shown by the choice of language, the capitalization of the name's initials (in French it's L'heure bleue) and the emphasis on the nationality of the officer (so you know for sure it's French!) But the really interesting part is that this ad, although an older advertisement, isn't that old as could be imagined. It's not a print ad from a 1920s magazine, nor even from the 1930s, or the 1940s….Can you guess?? It's a print ad clipping from a ……1974 magazine!!!! The Great war is irrelevant for all practical purposes by then, the "deep deep memories" echoing the trenches in which soldiers fought all over Europe are but a subconscious bond of "perfume as Proustian madeleine", a notion that is the bread & butter of any aspiring beauty editor experiencing writer's block. In this particular case it comes sheathed with seduction purposes too; desire and connection through language, orchestrated with Lacanian skill. The emotional bond with the product is part of what makes for repeat purchases. It also creates brand awareness.

But the mythology of Guerlain is firmly in place (yes, even by the mid-70s). The genius concept of presenting two of their legendary ~and commercially successful, let's not forget~ perfumes, L'heure bleue (1912) and Mitsouko (1918), as bookends to the first world war, is already gaining momentum. The reality is different: L'heure bleue, conceived to represent the love of its perfumer for Impressionist paintings is destined for the blondes shopping at his Parisian boutique, whereas Mitsouko, paying homage to the orientalia rising at the time of its creation and into the 1920s, is meant for the brunettes.

But you can clearly see where this is going: that which begins as a brilliant advertising campaign very soon becomes perpetuated into history guides, into fragrant lore, into our very perception of how things  are supposed to be….

Vintage Advertising Champions: Let Them Talk (Coty Sophia)

The first "real" celebrity perfume is probably Sophia by Coty, issued in 1981 after the persona of Sophia Loren, Italian superstar and Hollywood legend to give many a run for their money. No Liz Taylor, you ask? Elizabeth Taylor's white Diamonds and Catherine Deneuve's erstwhile Deneuve perfume deal with Avon (1986) historically follow Sophia. I'm not counting the (semi-promotional) claims by Creed or the historical figures like Empress Josephine (for Guerlain's Eau Imperiale) or Sarah Bernard who had a penchant for cosmetics anyway; their commissions didn't come across as "product" till very recently,  in essence ~pun notwithstanding~ negating the very concept of "celebrity scent" (aka, jus and packaging produced to harness the power of a fan club into strengthening a person's "brand").

If you're curious about these little fragrance trivia you can check out an interesting timeline for the Celebrity Fragrances Craziness History on this link.  And if you're not, it's still sort of fascinating to find out that Loren apparently had such a big following in America that the giant Coty was interested in promoting a fragrance after her!

But my focus today is the print ad. I mean, wow! Doesn't it give you that nudge, nudge,wink wink to go out and try out Sophia because it's everything that prim little "old ladies" with sour lips (yeah, I know!) wouldn't approve of? Please note that by 1981 Loren was no spring chicken herself, proudly displaying her 47 years of age (All the more so since back then 40s was most definitely not the "new 30s", we've come a long way baby…). Far from the feminist issue it appears on first glance, this little fact gives nuance.

A mature woman that probably sports some serious eyeliner,   a good smattering of blush, some flesh-toned lipstick not to divert from her gorgeous almond eyes and a good ol' hair spray cloud (before "product" became standard code for hair gels & mousses). And one who pretty much has caught her man and kept him too; not for lack of admirers, it is most convincingly hinted at. That sex appeal of Sophia is always on the surface but done in a classy manner (ms.Loren never gave cause for press scandals). The wording of the ad text lets us feel that sex appeal is OK (transcribed in its humanity rather than its outré reputation, as further consolidated by the crying & laughing bit) and that it's maybe only small minds of a dowdy, spinsterly nature that condemn it as such. Therefore, non sensical, negligible… The grace of the cultural divide is there too. Exotic, European actresses (and ladies from abroad in general) have always had a greater leeway with American audiences. Maybe partaking in their fragrance could impart a bit of this non mi interessa to their suburbia existence.

A case study for sociology and for perfume advertising.

Vintage Advertising Champions: Cacharel

This specimen of vintage advertising from the 1980s by the French brand Cacharel comes as the imaginative apex of an aesthetic we don't come across anymore. The white knickerbockers-style outfit with the straw hat and the knee high socks in Mary Janes has a vaguely early 20th century feel to it. The lion is imposing and has a questioning look in its eye, it is hoever reflected ~please note~ alone and on a checkered floor on the opposite page of the advertisement.

They just don't make them like this anymore…

Vintage Advertising Champions: Replique

via pinterest

Raphael's famous Replique perfume (long discontinued*) didn't shy away from bringing forth the animal in him.

*Replique perfume remains available in the States, sold since 1999 as part of longlostperfume.com. A glorious rich chypre. Original formula recipe dates back to 1965. 

Two Sides of Dear: Demystifying Patou's Joy Perfume Promotion

Common perfume lore wants it that Jean Patou's iconic perfume Joy has been presented to the American public with the tagline "the costliest perfume in the world". This was supposed to be a slogan coined by Elsa Maxwell, the famous columnist and gossip, who thought it a great boost in 1930 when Joy was introduced to the American market at the era of the Great Depression, as the American clientele of Jean Patou shrank. It was supposed to be an undaunted affirmation of its luxury status, instantly making it more desirable over others to those who could afford to buy it. (Perfume positioning and the tactics to market it haven't radically changed over the decades, have they?)

vintage Joy perfume ad found via ebay

But "I am very moved by one detail", as the poet Cavafy would say. The perfume was composed and launched in the chic Parisian atelier of Patou in 1926, for his loyal customers. The French advertisements beautifully promote it at a later date with a French tagline "Le parfum le plus cher (du monde)". On first glance this isn't incongruous with the American tagline, it looks like an exact "translation". [Incidentally it was also promoted with the taglines "le parfum roi" -aka freely translated as the king of perfumes- and "le joyau des parfums", i.e. a parfum bijou, a jewel of a perfume.]

The wonderful thing about it is that in French the word cher has a double entendre. It would best be translated not by "costly" to denote this, but by "dear". Dear as in costly, yes, but also as in beloved, as precious. Therefore the French tagline for Joy better reflects both its exalted status in the ballpark of top quality raw materials used, but also its popularity and preciousness as an objet d'art in the hearts of those who love it and wear it regularly. It also reflects better its real price in modern market terms, as it has been surpassed as "the costliest perfume of the world", even within the Patou canon (their "1000" extrait is officially admitted as costing more to produce than the respective Joy)

A linguistic detail in the chaos of perfume writing, but an important one, I feel.