Flora by Gucci: Images from Past and Present

In the latest fragrance Flora by Gucci advertisements the historic Flora print sufaces in a campaign shot by Chris Cunningham in a cornfield in Lativa featuring Australian model Abbey Lee in a butterflylike long silk chiffon gown in the middle of more that 40,000 silk flowers moving in tempo with the wind and a remix of Donna Summer’s hit “I Feel Love.” Inez & Vinoodh photographed Flora’s print advertising visuals while the fagrance launch will be backed by a dedicated Web site for the scent that will go live at the same time as the official introduction of the scent on the market.


The inspiration for the floral motif (and name of the fragance) comes from vintage collections by Gucci in which the big, romantic distinctive patterns of flowers and butterflies were strewn across silks and canvas on scaves and bags respectively.
The Flora bag was actually designed for princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly, in 1966. Bags have been at the core of the Gucci brand and as another head of a designer brand (also famous for their bags ~and not only), Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel has said: "'[Bags] make your life more pleasant, make you dream, give you confidence, and show your neighbors you are doing well. Everyone can afford a luxury handbag". The floral pattern was re-issued years later by Frida Giannini, creative director at Gucci, seduced by its playful brightness and is adorning the 2009 collections and the advetisements attached. Surprisingly, the floral motif is mostly on the clothes and less on the packaging of the new perfume which is quite monochromatic in black and white. “I was in love with the idea of a floral fragrance, and having the idea of naming the perfume Flora, everything was consequential. I wanted to give Flora a new freshness, so I decided to keep the same floral pattern but make it not so literal with all 25 colors, but black and white, more graphic and correct for the project,” said Giannini.


The fragrance developed by Firmenich for Procter & Gamble ~who owns parfums Gucci~ is a sophisticated floral (of course!), aimed at the younger clientele featuring citrus accords, peony, rose, osmanthus, pink pepper, and sandalwood.
The new feminine fragrance is the second Gucci women’s scent, following Gucci by Gucci, created under Giannini’s creative reign at the Florentine fashion house and when comparing the scents, Giannini said Gucci by Gucci channeled the powerful Gucci woman, while Flora addresses a sensual, younger woman. “Flora is lighter, the floral scent of course evokes a younger consumer, and she has a hedonistic, daring side. I don’t want to say that Flora is the daughter of Gucci by Gucci but maybe the younger sister,” Giannini elaborated. “Flora is another side of the multifaceted Gucci woman. “We have a huge space for the development of new scents, and now we are trying to build a new category. I want to re-create an entire panorama of scents under my vision.” Ambitious plans, no doubt!

The Gucci Flora fragrance line includes eau de toilette spray 30 ml. for $52, 50 ml. for $65, and 75 ml. for $90; deodorant, 100 ml. for $35; body lotion, 200 ml. for $45, and shower gel, 200 ml. for $38. The fragrance is set to launch globally in early April but is already available online at Neiman Marcus. (where there is a beautiful picture of the bottle as well)

Pics via Ines Zaikova, iofferbag.com, businessweek.com.

August sample draw winner.....

......is none other than Charlotte Vale! We will be in touch so I can send out the sample your way.


Thank you all for participating and stay tuned for the next one!

Astor Place by Bond no.9: new fragrance

Bond no.9, the brand that is synonymous with New York toponymia translated into fragrances is launching a new fragrance this April, called Astor Place, inspired by New York’s most vibrant arts-and-style intersection. The history of the place is quite interesting:

Back in the day, when Downtown was Uptown, nowhere in New York was grander than Astor Place—the enclave stretching between Broadway and Third Avenue, and floating between 14th and Houston Streets. Here, where much of the land was owned by the early 19th century fur-trading philanthropist John Jacob Astor, were situated the city’s greatest theaters, a row of colonnaded Greek Revival townhouses to rival Regent Park’s in London, the hallowed neo-Romanesque Great Hall of Cooper Union, the Renaissance-Revival Astor Library (now the Public Theater), and the neo-Renaissance shopping emporium John Wanamaker. Even the intersecting traffic thoroughfares added to the swirl of energy. Every street that enters the Astor Place energy field disappears and morphs into another street when it exits. (Eighth Street becomes St. Marks Place …Lafayette Street becomes Fourth Avenue … the Bowery becomes Third Avenue.) Astor Place kept a low profile through much of the 20th century. But then in 1967, Tony Rosenthal’s multi-ton gravity-defying geometric black metal sculpture, informally known as “the Cube,” was installed on its vertical axis right in the center of the plaza where Lafayette meets the Bowery. A bit to the south, that spacious promenade, Lafayette Street, is home not only to the acclaimed Public Theatre, where its see-and-be-seen Joe’s Pub now beckons to a stylish late-night crowd, but also to the Astor Place Theater. Ensconced in Colonnade Row, it was there that Sam Shepard’s plays were once performed, while Blue Man Group has held the subterranean stage since 1991. Berthed in the ground-level spaces, meanwhile, are a series of ultra-elegant mid-century home furnishings shops.

This fascinating glimpse of a historical place is meant to be embottled in the new fragrance and it remains to be seen whether it succeeded.
According to Bond, "the Astor Place flacon echoes the angles and cubes of the Rosenthal sculpture, the famous marker of the neighborhood – and renders them in the richest array of colors ever seen. All this is placed again a golden background, paying homage to the Astor fortune and philanthropy". The scent aims at merging downtown with uptown. A seductive fresh floral – flanking freesia with poppy and violet leaf and flanked by the smooth, deeper notes of teakwood and musk. The description of the official pyramid is playfully over the top as per usual, so I will spare you the novelette and will get down to hard, specific notes for Bond no.9 Astor Place: violet leaf, mandarin zest, red poppy buds, orris, teakwood, musk, amber.
For Mother’s Day Bond no.9 is offering Astor Place in a limited-edition Swarovski bottle – delicately decorated with topaz crystals.

Available at Bond No. 9’s four New York City boutiques, www.bondno9.com, 877.273.3369, and at Saks Fifth Avenue nationwide at $145 for 50ml and $220 for 100ml of Eau de Parfum. Astor Place Swarovski Limited-Edition for Mother’s Day will be $300 for 100ml.

The official Lancome Blog is out!

Obviously having an official blog for cosmetics and perfumes houses is not an affair to be trifled with, if the efforts by Sylvaine Delacourte at Guelain have been anything to go by. The house of Lancome has just released its very own blog named The Lancome Blog, starting being officially functioning on March 10th 2009. Besides news about the brand's products, the Lancome Blog will also give away various gifts and samples and cement a bond with the brand's customers this way. Run, written and edited by Kerry Diamond, vice-president of Public relations, together with PR team members who will often write columns and news, it seems like blogging is not for hobby-ists any more! As expected, I might add...

Interrupted by Death: The Lost Chanel

The road to hell is paved with the best intentions, a saying goes. Sometimes, it's not one's actions that prevent those intentions to materialize into good deeds however, but something more sinister, more unexpected intervenes; like the grim hand of Death, wiping out in one sweep everything, leaving behind only unfulfilled dreams, plans and unfinished projects. One such project was a commercial for Chanel for a new feminine perfume that was to be completed and aired by 2008 and as we have been talking about the new flanker of Cristalle yesterday and the two upcoming films about Coco Chanel's life the other day, it seems appropriate that we should tackle it now while the flow is running.
The fragance was meant to revolutionize the concepts of fragance families and the commercial was set to be directed by British-born director of Italian extraction Anthony Minghella (most famous for his work on The Talented Mr.Ripley, The English Patient and Cold Mountain). He died a year ago, at the premature age of 54, due to complications from cancer operation before being able to realize the project. The late artistic director Jacques Helleu was naturally involved, but preceding Minghella to his deathbed by a few months he was also absent during the final critical stages. Therefore this little rememberance on Perfumeshrine today is both to Minghella's honour ~exactly one year later to the day today~ and to show how an iconic brand visualises its inheritance as a constant memento of a sense of history; the rich history of Chanel.

I have been fortunate to be able to see the storyboards for the commercial and in its own way it tells its own story, shown here by the hand of illustrator Andy Sparrow. The script was to be written by author Michael Ondaatje (his is the author of the worthwhile novel, later filmed, The English Patient so the connection with Minghella was there), although the few tidbits that remain are not indicative of his undoubtedly smart would-be contibutions. The male lead would be Patrick Wilson and the female lead was to be negotiated between several options, including supemodels snatched up by other firms in the meantime or celebrity offspring. Nothing of all this materialized, so we can picture whomever we please in the cute, round face of the heroine with the slanted eyes under the bobbed hair.


The commercial opens on the 1920s Seine riverbank with a wideshot showing a most romantic Paris in period attire.


Two people meet under the lamps. He's buying flowers, she greets him.



They're embracing when he asks "Are you wearing perfume?"



"Yes, but it's a secret..."



The mystique of the elusive fragrance is left hanging in the air, almost whispered or not quite as they walk on past one of the many Parisian cafés, leaving us to dream a bit...

What the fragrance would be named or smell like never really revealed itself beyond the closed doors at le studio Chanel. It was a secret project, secretive like Coco heself liked to look at the audience during a defilé so she would tuck behind the famous mirrored staircase and she could see everyone's expression yet nobody could see her ~she also monitored the sales floor by looking at the mirrored staircase~ as the 1962 photo by Hatami or this Frank Horvart photo from 1958 on the left shows! The mirror notion is a symbol for a look into both the esoterica of one's personality in times of introspection as well as a reflection (an eidolon, if you please!) on the brand's own core. Magic is done with mirrors and fun-fairs are resplendent with transforming mirrors that reveal hidden dimensions and sides of one's look. Perfume can act like a mirror that can be accurate, or alternatively distorting in a grotesque or burlesque sense, depending on our own aspirations, humour and sense of self-constaint. It's no accident that mirrors play an integral visual and symbolic part in the latest Keira Knightley commercial for Coco Mademoiselle directed by Joe Wright!
The plain, austerely chic packaging of iconic Chanel perfumes is also a tabula rasa, a secret mirror on which to reflect one's own personality, inducing no preconceived evocations. Ikki Miyake's "No. 19 Susashi-Kotoba `Perfume,' " artwork shown at the Chanel Nexus Hall in Ginza as part of the DanDans exhibition, was a whimsical play on the Chanel perfume bottle; yet it captures Chanel's secret quite well. The secret is that we can mentally squeeze ourselves into a chic Chanel flacon much like the model is being immersed in one on this stiking photo.

Please read a moving tribute to Anthony Minghella by his three-times collaborator Jude Law published in the Obsever last December.

Thanks to Andy Sparrow, hackelbuy.co.uk, shelterinteriordesign blog