06 Thursday Dec 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent
I filed away this Caron advertisement from 1940 a while ago, not just because I liked it, but because I had a feeling that its imagery was borrowed from some earlier work of art. Yesterday, in a completely unrelated search, I came across the source…
15 Monday Oct 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent
“Discover JOY by Dior. Finally, joy is captured in a fragrance marked by enveloping softness and energy, all at once. An ode to pleasure, to life.” (via Dior website)
I smelled this fragrance in Sephora and couldn’t be bothered to request a sample. I don’t even think we’ve reviewed it on Now Smell This; apparently, none of the blog’s four writers could be bothered. That gives you a pretty good idea of the fragrance’s “energy.”
However, the print ads for Joy, featuring Jennifer Lawrence, have brought me back for a second look. Here’s Ms. Lawrence, damp hair pushed back and neck glistening with drops of water, emerging from some aquamarine ripples (a swimming pool? tropical sea?).
She could be a contemporary interpretation of the goddess Aphrodite, born from the ocean. She could be an evocation of an mermaid—oh, the whole seemingly never-ending mermaid trend!
Or she could be styled and photographed to evoke an older set of images of another celebrity…
29 Wednesday Aug 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent
My husband and I recently went to see the new documentary McQueen. I’ve been an admirer of Alexander McQueen’s work for a long time—even before his death in 2010. In 2011 I was a frequent visitor to “Savage Beauty,” the retrospective exhibition of Alexander McQueen’s designs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I’m still haunted by McQueen’s artistry and the magical way it was showcased there…
08 Wednesday Aug 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent
It has recently come to my attention that today is International Cat Day (or, as I like to call it, “Wednesday”). In that spirit, I offer you five images of fabulously fragrant felines!
The first one is a circa-1890s trade card for E. W. Hoyt, based in Lowell, Massachusetts. This cat and her kittens are promoting Hoyt’s German Cologne, with a side-mention of Rubifoam tooth cleanser. Note the distracting presence of the canary in the upper right corner of the scene…
06 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent
In my looks at fragrance and advertising, I’d also like to mention a few perfume ads that take their inspiration from film as well as the more traditional visual arts.
Elizabeth Arden’s campaign for Fifth Avenue is contemporary as well as film-influenced. Fifth Avenue was released in 1996 and it’s still in production; the Arden website describes it as “a sparkling, sheer floral with subtle warmth and richness.”…
16 Wednesday May 2018
Posted in Advertising and Scent, Art and Scent
Sometimes an advertisement is all we can know of a discontinued perfume. This is the case (for me, at least) for Natural de Myrurgia, a fragrance released by the Spanish house Myrurgia in 1982.
Myrurgia is best known for its classic Maja, still available worldwide, but all I’ve been able to learn about Natural comes from a page on the Fragrantica database, which describes Natural as a floral-chypre composition of sandalwood, patchouli, musk, violet, jasmine, pink peony, bergamot, and rose. The page also includes an ad for Natural de Myrurgia. The photo is too small and too low-resolution for me to read its text, but its imagery is clear enough…
14 Thursday Dec 2017
Posted in Advertising and Scent
Are you doing any Christmas shopping this week? Have you trimmed the tree? We’re keeping things relatively simple this year, but I’m enjoying the preparations.
In the spirit of opened gifts and fulfilled wishes, here is a Christmas advertisement for Bourjois Evening in Paris, dated 1961. The “dreams come true” in this ad are assorted Evening in Paris gift sets. (I own a vintage bottle of Evening in Paris, mostly likely dating to the 1960s, and I love it…)
28 Tuesday Nov 2017
Posted in Advertising and Scent
Agent Provocateur has released a few good fragrances over the past decade or so, although its most recent release (Fatale) was very disappointing. I like the original Agent Provocateur scent, and Maitresse; I know that L’Agent also has some fans. I don’t think the collection is very heavily advertised in the United States, however, because I don’t remember seeing this advertisement when L’Agent was launched in 2011.
It’s a surprisingly stark and gloomy-looking ad for a women’s perfume. There’s a bit of cleavage, but nowhere near as much as we see in other perfume ads from L’Agent Provocateur (it’s a lingerie company, after all!)—and the chess board gives the image a cerebral twist…
01 Wednesday Nov 2017
Posted in Advertising and Scent
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This one’s an easy one, right?—and it’s influenced by movies rather than fine art, strictly speaking, but I’m including it in this series nonetheless.
Aviance Night Musk (1983) was a flanker to the original Aviance (1975) by Prince Matchabelli, and its advertisements were just a bit racier than the earlier Aviance ads. Whereas the ads for Aviance showed couples heading out for a night on the town, Aviance Night Musk suggested something a little more illicit in their decision to stay in.
I love that sleek red pump; so early-80s…
