Thirteen leading fragrance companies have been sentenced to a total of more than 40 million in fines by the Court of Appeal of Paris for price fixing leading up to an oligopoly/collusion.
The Court upheld a decision by the Competition Authority ruled in 2006 against thirteen major names in luxury and three distribution companies of perfumes and cosmetics, for fixing a retail price of products to standardize prices up , as the Court viewed by AFP.
The condemned perfume brands are: Chanel, Beauté Prestige International (Jean Paul Gaultier and Issey Miyake fragrances), Clarins Fragance Group (including Thierry Mugler perfumes), Hermès Parfums, Parfums Christian Dior, Elco (Clinique and Estee Lauder), Guerlain, L'Oreal, LVMH Fragance Brands, Sisheido Europe, and YSL Beauté. The condemned distributors are retail sales giants: Marionnaud, Sephora and Nocibé.
What was this all about?
The luxury groups in question locked a "street price" of products and the discount rate than they were allowed to practice with their distributors in order to level up prices to the detriment of the consumer, as the Competition Council established in its first decision in 2006.
They also accused the suppliers of establishing a "price police", in other words, price controls, pressures and threats of trade retaliation vis-à-vis the recalcitrant distributors.
The history of shame
The story isn't entirely new. An alleged cartel between 1997 and 2000 was what prompted a particularly long legal battle, as this is the third time the issue is examined by the Court of Appeal, the two previous decisions being challenged before the Court of Cassation. In both cases, the senior judges had asked for a retrial on appeal. You can see the newspaper clipping depicted from 2006 (click photo to enlarge)
Interestingly, the amount of the total fine now was reduced from 46.2 million euros to 40.20 euros.
Good news for the inclusion of know-how and artistry in the olfactory art exhibition at the NYC Museum of Arts and Design. Hermès has become a 2012 Major Donor to The Department of Olfactory Art.
Hermès’ gift is earmarked for the exclusive use of the Department of Olfactory Art and its activities. To quote Chandler Burr, the curator of the exhibition: "As you all know, I’m particularly familiar with Hermès Parfums’ in-house artist, Jean-Claude Ellena, and am extremely happy to have Hermès, this great house founded in 1837, as a donor."
Like The Estée Lauder Companies, P&G Prestige, Chanel, and Guerlain, Hermès will have a seat on the Department of Olfactory Art’s Advisory Board.
Promotion for fragrances don't have to involve much to be suggestive and to stir the imagination. Forget bimbos rolling on the bed, blinged out couples coupling amourously and lots of skin display; forget long tirades extolling the virtues of precious ingredients and mellifluous emotion. A mere suggestion and a quote from a legendary celebrity saying they found a fragrance to have an influence in their lives is enough.
Behold a photo shot by Peter Lindberg for Guerlain's classic masculine fragrance Habit Rouge, genre: (tres) masculin. [translation: Gender: (very) masculine].
Habit Rouge refers to the red riding jacket donned by gentlemen in equestrian days. Of course!
And then you have Keith Richards, of Rolling Stones infamous celebrity, reminscing in his memoirs about choosing Guerlain'sHabit Rouge as his signature scent [Mick Jagger prefers Chanel Cuir de Russie]:
"One minute no chick in the world. No f*cking way, and they're going la la la la la. And the next they're sniffing around. And you're going wow, when I changed from Old Spice to Habit Rouge, things definitely got better."
~Keith Richards, 'Life'
L'Artisan Parfumeur fragrances are designed to arouse emotions and the company would like you to express yours as part of the new LOVE MESSAGES ‘happening’.Visit L'Artisan in their boutiques and corners from January 30th, pick up paper hearts and compose your heart-felt or amusing love messages, then place them in the giant bottles. The more the merrier; as for every 20 love messages received, a tree will be planted in Mali. And by the way, you will also have the chance to win fragrances! (for yourself or loved ones.)
Again this year (2011 saw 500 trees planted!), L'Artisan Parfumeur is working in partnership with TREE AID, an NGO that supports development and reforestation in Mali. The company chose this West African nation in honour of the iconic fragrance Timbuktu: this warm, sensual and bewitching elixir was inspired by Bertrand Duchaufour’s journey to this fascinating country.
Who, at the first sign of frost, doesn't long to be wrapped in an oversized cashmere throw, sit by the fire, grab a good book, and sip something spiked and fragrant while the snowflakes outside are dancing the polka? January's chilly winds and all too brief days call for heavier knits, formal furs to banish the cold and an inferno of fragrance to get through it all; and cold it has been, unusually so this year for this corner of Europe!
Seeking warmth in your perfume can be a subtle reassurance in cold weather, but it can also be fun to try to match, getting the fragrance notes to smell painstakingly pure as if emerging out of a snow bath Venus-like off the waves. There is indeed a two-pronged approach to choosing personal fragrance for winter wearing:
One is to go for traditional oriental elements, warm resins and balsams, rich florals and amber blends; creating contrast and invoking via perfume-magic mellower lands where the night is always warm and bodies radiate the heat of blood rushing to the skin's surface. Another, more unusual one, is akin to homeopathy: inject a bit of cool silkiness to the routine, letting the outside cold enhance the silvery, metallic qualities of the perfume. Therefore throw in a mix of irises, artemisia, wormwood, angelica and gentian essences, cool celebral notes, and sour frankincense smoke that trails behind like the ashes off an extinguished censer...
It's also just the time for precious vintages (do a search on PerfumeShrine for plenty of ideas on those) and for parfums fourrure, since putting these perfumes on is as enveloping as donning my fur jacket and you wouldn't don a fur jacket in August, would you?
Monica Belluci and Alain Delon forAnnabella
Here are some of the fragrances and other stuff in my rotation this winter to stir the senses and banish (or embrace, if you like!) the cold.
Guerlain Tonka Impériale
Wearing it on winter sweaters and scarfs (where it clings for days, radiating seductively) is akin to getting caressed by a honey mink étole, smelling fine cigars in a salon de thé serving the most delicious almond pralines on panacotta.
Caron Poivre
As warm as a fur coat, as arresting as pepper spray, a pas de deux on clove and carnation blossoms; or the scent of Cruella de Vil. I bring out the sable and pretend I'm wicked!
Armani Prive Bois d'Encens
A clean smoky incense that wafts from the forests on the cool wintery air, gloomy cedars silently silhouetted in the distance.
La Myrrhe by Serge Lutens Myrrh gum is part of ecclesiastical incense alongside frankincense for millenia. You would expect an oriental, full of resinous mystery, going by the name, right? Lutens goes one better and infuses the bitter ambience of myrrh with candied mandarin rind and citrusy aldehydes which bring this on the upper plane of an airy aldehydic. Somehow it wears lightly but solemnly too and it resembles nothing else on the market. Cool days bring La Myrrhe's attibutes to the fore and it remains amongst my most precious possessions.
And of course, Bottega Veneta Eau de Parfum
If you yearn for the sweetly pungent and at the same time totally "fabricated" smell of a good, old-school leather fragrance...then the fragrance release introduced by the Bottega Veneta brand (the apex of leather luxury) is set to stir your heart with unbridled longing. And deservedly so: Bottega Veneta Eau de Parfum is unquestionably "mighty fine"; it made it both to my Top 2011 Best Fragrances list and my Autumn Sensuous Discoveries list. Now it's on my Top Winter things list too. Figures...
I'm also crazy about discovering Nostalgie by Sonoma Scent Studio. There's a sheen sans pareil about wearing a graceful floral aldehydic smack in the middle of winter, everything just seems to sparkle brighter under the tentative sun! In that vein, expect a review of the graceful L'Ame Soeur by Divine and an update on its slightly re-orchestrated reissue shortly on these pages!
Winter is also the time to indulge in some body pampering. Heavy oils and unctuous creams suddenly seem welcome, decadent, like a deserved small luxury.This winter I have seriously lost myself into the scentscape of vanilla pods, almonds & toasted cereals of Cacharel's Gloria Bath & Body Oil. I also regularly turn to L'Occitane Creme Ultra Riche, crammed full with shea butter, for all topical dry skin emergencies.
Food-wise, winter weekends is the time to make time-consuming, elaborate dishes like Armenian "manti", called Tatar Böregi in Turkey (recipe to follow on subsequent post), full of the warming aroma of all spice, cinnamon, cumin and clove. I also love to prepare home-made halwa with semolina, raisins and roasted pine nuts. Yum!
pic via mantrakina.blogspot.com
Intellectually I have been stimulated through work mainly this season. But off-work hasn't been totally idle.
I took an interest to John A. Hall’s “Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography", recounting the exiling of intellectuals of Eastern Europe because of communism and Nazism. The relaxed pace of an evening by the fire also perfectly fits reading poems by Emily Dickinson and Kostas Karyotakis thanks to their slow pace and melancholy. I also caught The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo in cinemas this winter: It's atmospheric and suprisingly loyal to the original Swedish version, so if you need a rec, go watch it!
The clip comes from the 2004 film "Weeping Meadow" (Το λιβάδι που δακρύζει) by Greek film director Theo Aggelopoulos, who died last Tuesday. Music by Eleni Karaindrou.
original photo on top Winter Leaves by Eric Begin/Flickr, some rights reserved
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